Eromosele Ebhomele

Leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has become the focal point of the media

If any Nigerian media organisation could consider a Man Of The Year award for Notoriety in 2014, that award would undoubtedly be won by Abubakar Shekau, the current world’s most wanted terrorist leader of the Nigeria-based Boko Haram group. Since 14 April when the abduction of over 234 girls of the Federal Government College resulted in a local uproar that has now crept into every corner of the world, Shekau has become a recurring figure in the news media across the globe.

The abduction of the girls was broken by Aljazeera, some hours after the incident. This was promptly followed by other news media and within minutes, the internet had been filled with different tales of the incident, the terrorist group, Shekau and his activities. Both Nigerian and foreign media agree that under him, Boko Haram has become more radical, more violent and more dreaded.

• Members of The Christian Defence Coalition pray in front of the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington, DC during a prayer vigil on 14 May in support of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram extremists. AFP PHOTO

But while most Nigerian media organisations are daily focused on developing stories concerning the abducted girls, foreign media are taking their time to study the man Shekau, in a bid to demystify him. For example, Saeed Ahmed of the Cable News Network, CNN, called Shekau the face of terror, a ruthless leader with a twisted ideology and the sadistic architect of a campaign of mayhem and misery. Despite this description, he noted that very little is known about Shekau, who he called an Islamic scholar.

The CNN report further said of Shekau: “he operates in the shadows, leaving his underlings to orchestrate his repulsive mandates. He resurfaces every once in a while in videotaped messages to mock the impotence of the Nigerian military. And he uses his faith to recruit the impressionable and the disenfranchised to his cause. He studied under a cleric and then attended Borno State College of Legal and Islamic Studies for higher studies on Islam. That’s why he’s also known as ‘Darul Tawheed,’ which translates to an expert in monotheism, or the oneness of Allah.”

Apart from this description, CNN called him a polyglot, one who is always elusive, a loner who does not speak with his boys directly, and one who uses many aliases including Abu Bakr Skikwa, Imam Abu Bakr Shiku and Abu Muhammad Abu Bakr Bin Muhammad Al Shakwi Al Muslimi Bishku. He was an unruly number two who became a merciless number one after the death of Mohammed Yusuf, “a charismatic, well-educated cleric who drove a Mercedes as part of his push for a pure Islamic state in Nigeria,” but “wasn’t too effective as a leader and had a hard time keeping his second-in-command in check.”

The British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, described him as a radical theology student, who was once said to have been killed by security forces in 2009 only to reappear in videos posted on the internet less than a year later as Boko Haram’s new leader. Since then, the BBC said, Shekau has not been seen in public. Only still images and video clips of him are released online from time to time by the group’s faceless ‘public enlightenment department’. It added that the Boko Haram’s leader is said to be a fearless loner, a complex, paradoxical man – part-theologian, part-gangster.

“Shekau is said to have met his predecessor in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and Boko Haram’s then-stronghold, through a mutual friend, Mamman Nur… Nigeria’s authorities say Nur masterminded the August 2011 bombing of the UN office complex in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja…All three were theology students – and Shekau was seen as the quietest and perhaps the most radical of them,” the BBC said about him and quoting Ahmed Salkida, a journalist who once had a link with the sect, the media organisation said he Shekau hardly talks, but he is fearless.

The America-based Huffington Post, in its short but detailed exposition on Shekau, said when Muhammad Yusuf was killed, Shekau married one of his four wives and adopted their children to preserve the sect’s purity.

“The group has a highly decentralised structure – the unifying force appears to be ideology, though many believe that they are now more interested in vengeance than in ideology. Shekau does not communicate directly with the group’s foot soldiers – he is said to wield his power through a few select cell leaders, but even then contact is minimal,” Huffington Post wrote.

It said Shekau is also the group’s spiritual leader and while quoting a Nigerian source, it noted that the man has a photographic memory and is well-versed in theology with his followers nicknaming him “Darul Tawheed”, which means specialist in Tawheed.

To The Telegraph, Shekau is “the craziest commander of all”. And quoting Alex Preston in British GQ, The Telegraph explained that Shekau is rumoured to have escaped from a Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital sometime in the late 1990s.

Abubakar Shekau’s rising profile and new notoriety, the medium said, may be something that he has aimed for since his takeover of the group. But as the world increasingly demands action, it may also be his undoing.