“They are killing us rather than dialoguing with us” –Boko Haram

Following claims that the some leaders of the dreaded Boko Haram sect has been killed by the JTF, an Hausa language video by its leader, Abubakar Shekau, posted on YouTube, has been released, denying the claims.

The video in particular declared war on the
Northern leaders, saying they have “messed up” and that there is no hiding place for them any longer: “This message is for those in authority (emirs, governors, and government officials). Wallahi you have no resting place again and no resting time again, either we are here or we are not… you (the Northern leaders) have messed up yourselves and you have messed up your own situation.”

Denying older claims of any form of negotiation between the group and the government, the group leader has said that there is nothing like that. However, they confirm that some of their members have been killed: “The claim that we are negotiating with the state is untrue, that is the figment of their imagination… We are not in dialogue with anyone, but this seems to feed their taste or their appetite for disinformation… All I can confirm is that they are killing us rather than dialoguing with us,” Shekau said.

The group leader also confirmed that female members of the groups have been captured by the JTF, and he threatened that the group will retaliate in kind: “As at Saturday when I made this video, between 7 and 10 of them (women) have been incarcerated… We don’t know where they are kept or what they are doing to them.”

On the recent anti-Islam video and claims by the JTF that the leadership of the group has been seriously decimated: “I have words for you (the makers of the video). All these have no impact on the prophet you know, however you wait and see what the consequences will be for you.” On their leadership, “The most bogus of these claims is that the leadership of our group has been decimated or arrested… It is probably the leadership of the rogue group that they killed which they created in the first place… You can go ahead and even declare that this broadcast is fiction.”