Shekau is well, alive – Boko Haram negotiator

Borno-born journalist said to be a close ally of Boko Haram, Ahmad Salkida, has dismissed the reported killing of a top leader of the outlawed Islamist sect.

Salkida, who is on self-exile in the United Arab Emirates over alleged threats to his life, said he has it on “authority” that Abubakar Shekau was hale and hearty.

Writing on Twitter, Salkida, who is widely reported to have had an unfettered access to the late Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf,  claimed that Shekau, who he had discussions with recently during a failed attempt to negotiate an end to the continued incarceration of the Chibok girls was not the one being portrayed in a picture circulating online.

“Mark my words: I have it on authority that Shekau is well and alive. The picture going round is not the person who torments us with his group,” the journalist who now works as an import and export agent of agricultural products and textile materials in Dubai,  wrote on Twitter.