According to the Director of defence information Major General Chris Olukolade said on wednesday at a news conference in Abuja that the Boko Haram leader parading himself as Abubakar shekau has been killed during a confrontation between Boko Haram insurgents and the nigerian military between september 12 -17 2014.
Major General Chris Olukolade said the people of konduga identified the corpse of Mohammed Bashir who has been parading himself as Shekau, he has used several names in the past like Damasack, Abacha Abdullahi Geidam.
Bashir, who was said to have had several aliases, had “been acting or posing on videos as the deceased Abubakar Shekau, the eccentric character known as leader of the group,” he added.
The announcement is the first time the military has said publicly that Shekau was dead after two previous claims by security sources that he had died in July 2009 and in late June 2013.
The military did not, however, say how or when Shekau died.
Earlier this year, the spokeswoman for the country’s secret police, Marilyn Ogar, said “the original Shekau is dead” and that the person appearing in numerous videos was an imposter.
Olukolade said on Wednesday that the actual identity of Boko Haram’s leader was not relevant. The name “Shekau” had become a “brand name for the terrorists,” he told a news conference.