The truth on the face of Boko Haram, the leader Abubakar Shekau revealed by Nigerian analyst Mohamed Kabir Issa.
In an audio interview to BBC, Issa revealed the truth that there is very little information about the face that represents Boko Haram in all its shocking videos. Still, he describes the man as a very angry one.
He is often described as a very complex, fearless loner, part gangster and part theologian.
Since he became the leader of Boko Haram in 2009, the group has become more radical than before and reportedly perfomed more killings.
*Abubakar Shekau
In his latest video he was shown in the most shocking way laughing when he revealed that he was the one who abducted over 200 girls from Chibok and promised to sell them.
"I abducted your girls," Abubakar said. "I will sell them in the market, by Allah. I will sell them off and marry them off."
It is revealed that his roots are from Niger, while he was born in Nigeria – Shekau village in Yobe State. There is no specific date of his birth, though some say he is 34 and others that he is 43.
The Government of the US has offered a significant reward of $7m for information about his location in June, 2013. The Nigerian army offered a N50 million ($300,000) reward for information leading to his capture.
Abubakar Shekau has been a deputy leader to the founder of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in 2009. Yusuf was known to be a more liberal leader. Shekau married one of his 4 wives.
He is reportedly fluent in Hausa, Kanuri and Arabic, though according to the audio interview he is not well educated and can read only a bit.
Though Shekau claims to be a theologian who studied Islam “under a traditional cleric” there is no proof of that and some even claim that he is not educated in Islam. His nickname given by his followers is "Darul Tawheed", which means a specialist in Tawheed, which is an orthodox doctrine of the oneness of Allah, the very cornerstone of Islam.
Shekau often releases videos in which he boasts his invincibility and claims to be unstoppable and "cannot die except by the will of Allah".
After one of the deadliest attacks of Boko Haram in Kano in January 2012 when 180 people were killed, Shekau appeared in a video and said: "I enjoy killing anyone that God commands me to kill - the way I enjoy killing chickens and rams."
According to Martin Ewi, who is a senior researcher at Pretoria-based, pan-African policy Institute for Security Studies, the two leaders of Boko Haram are 100% different. As he talked to France24 he revealed that Yusuf was nothing like Shekau. Yusuf had a much broader vision and played great role in Islamic studies in the North of Nigeria as they believed that Western education was immoral.
Moreover, Yusuf was not hiding anywhere, everyone knew him and he made open press statements without conducting any attacks.
"Although Shekau is an imam, or Muslim preacher, he has a very different style. I think he’s more dangerous than Yusuf,” Ewi said. “In a sense, Yusuf used to choose his battles. Shekau doesn’t draw boundaries. He’s opportunistic; he’ll attack whenever the opportunity shows.”
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