The apparent death of Boko Haram's leader reflects the shifting power dynamics among west Africa's jihadists
But this time it seems he is not coming back. On May 19th, according to trusted reports, Mr Shekau detonated an explosive vest to avoid capture by Islamic State West Africa Province , a splinter group that was attacking Boko Haram’s stronghold in Borno State in north-east Nigeria. His death marks the end of a bloody career. It also reflects the shifting power dynamics among west Africa’s jihadists.
The son of a local imam, Mr Shekau was born in a remote village near the border with Niger, sometime between 1965 and 1975. He left home as a child for Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, where he was entrusted to the care of an itinerant Koran teacher. As a young man he met Muhammad Yusuf, the founder in 2002 of the sect that became Boko Haram. When Yusuf was killed in police custody in 2009, Mr Shekau took the group underground.
Vast swathes of Nigeria’s arid north-east fell under Boko Haram’s control. Attacks extended to Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Nigerian authorities say at least 10,000 boys have been abducted by the group and rifles forced into their hands. In 2014 the group won global notoriety by kidnapping some 276 schoolgirls in Chibok. Celebrities shared the slogan #BringBackOurGirls. Mr Shekau said the girls had converted to Islam—or would be sold into slavery.
Yet it was his fellow jihadists, not bounty hunters, who laid him low. In 2015 he crushed a breakaway faction and pledged allegiance to Islamic State . But, based out of the Middle East, came to view Mr Shekau’s relentless killing of civilians and use of child suicide-bombers as counter-productive. It first tried to replace him. When that failed, in 2016,It has the same stated goals: the creation of an Islamic state in northern Nigeria and the eradication of “Western influence”.
will probably absorb hundreds of Boko Haram fighters, making it even more of a threat to the Nigerian armed forces, which are reeling from the death in a plane crash on May 21st of the army commander.’s claim that, although it has lost ground in the Middle East, its affiliates in Africa, whether in the Sahel, Congo, Mozambique or Nigeria, are in the ascendant. A jihadist is most likely dead. His cause endures.
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