Shekau mentally ill, says Nigerian Army

The Nigerian Army has described the embattled leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, as mentally ill following the release of the latest video in which the terror group leader denied claims made by the army that he was seriously injured.

“The video has shown beyond all reasonable doubt the earlier suspicion that the purported factional terrorist group leader is mentally sick and unstable,” the spokesman for the Nigerian Army, Sani Usman, said in a statement on Sunday.

“The ranting is also another sign that the end is near for him which is part of the signs of all wicked people.”

Usman insisted that Shekau was indeed wounded in an air strike in August and the troops in the northeast were doing enough to check the activities of the terror group.

Nigerian authorities have reported him dead several times before, but the army’s latest claim was bolstered when Boko Haram — which pledged allegiance last year to the Islamic State (IS) group — released a video on September 13 without Shekau in it.

However, in the video released Sunday, Shekau points to a date on an Islamic calendar corresponding to September 25, 2016.

Speaking in Hausa, Arabic and English and in dialects spoken in northeast Nigeria, he appears to be in good physical health.

He uses the video to issue threats against President Muhammadu Buhari, who appealed to the United Nations this week for help in negotiating the release of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by the militants more than two years ago.

“If you want your girls, bring back our brethren,” Shekau said.

But Usman said Nigerian Army was intent on clearing “the remnants of the terrorists and rescue all persons held hostage by them especially the abducted Chibok Secondary School girls.”