Boko Haram’s purported leader Abubakar Shekau has appeared in an unverified video that possibly signals a change in leadership in the Nigerian militant group.
Shekau took over the leadership of Boko Haram in 2009 after the death of its founder Mohammed Yusuf. Under his leadership, the group has waged a six-year insurgency in northeastern Nigeria—which spread in 2015 to neighboring countries Cameroon, Chad and Niger—killing tens of thousands and displacing more than 2 million people.
Shekau was last heard from in March 2015, when an audio message attributed to him was released pledging Boko Haram’s allegiance to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), after which it rebranded itself as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
In the poor-quality eight-minute video, which has been posted on social media and YouTube, Shekau is seen holding a rifle beside one of the black flags associated with ISIS. He speaks slowly and appears frailer than in previous videos. Shekau talks in a mixture of Arabic and the northern Nigerian language Hausa, according to Athanasius Atta Barkindo, a PhD candidate at SOAS University of London, who works with rehabilitating Boko Haram extremists in Nigeria.
The video appears to be new and legitimate, according to Yan St-Pierre, chief executive of the Berlin-based Modern Security Consulting Group (MOSECON). “He is telling his followers that he is alive. This appears to be the video preparing for the post-Shekau situation [in]Boko Haram-ISWAP,” says St-Pierre, who adds that his group is still working on a final translation of the video.
Shekau has appeared in numerous Boko Haram videos in the past, including one displaying hundreds of girls kidnapped by the group from their dormitories in Chinook, Nigeria. The girls were kidnapped in April 2014 and 219 still remain unaccounted for. He is currently subject to a $7 million U.S. bounty.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari claimed in December 2015 that Boko Haram had been “technically” defeated after the Nigerian military reclaimed much of the territory held by the group. Since the start of 2016, however, the group has launched multiple attacks and killed over 200 people.
