Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, sensationally announced on Friday, February 24, 2017 he had executed the spokesman for the terror group, Tasiu who is also known as Abu Zinnira.
Shekau accused Tasiu and another senior commander, Baba Ammar, of plotting to oust him from Boko Haram leadership.
He claimed the duo had been sending fighters out on illegal raids, spreading rumours among his lieutenants that he intended to kill them and portraying him as unfit to lead.
An agency report quoted Shekau as telling an inner circle of his group that “I killed Tasiu.”
“You should hear me: I killed Tasiu, hear me well,” he told the gathering on December 18, 2016.
The meeting had been called to clear the air over the bad blood apparently sparked within the group by Tasiu’s elimination.
Shekau in a 50-minute audio recording of the meeting blasted “those grumbling over the killing of Tasiu.”
Tasiu and “other elements,” he charged, had tried to portray him to the rank and file as “not on the right track.”
“Tell me, what is the punishment for people that plot against their leader?”
“By our code of allegiance we don’t hesitate to pass appropriate sanction on any one of us that commits an offence.”
He said nothing about the fate of the “other elements.”
This article originally appeared on The Nation.
