Shekau’s death: The end of an era, the beginning of an in-born terrorism

Without a doubt, the death of Shekau, the popular leader of the terrorist group, Boko Haram is still to the Nigerian army a piece of news not to announce publicly.

This, however, is a result of their past experiences; the announcement they’ve made in the past has returned a lot of embarrassment to them because he always resurfaces after his death celebration. Then they claimed he was seriously wounded but never thought he would survive the injury.

The Wednesday announcement seems to carry an atom of truth as he was reported captured by ISWAP but blew up himself, after detonating a suicide vest he was wearing.

According to reports, he was traced to his Sambisa forest hideout and asked to surrender and plead allegiance to the Islamic State West African Province, (ISWAP) a group that broke away from Boko Haram in 2016 to align with ISIS.

ISWAP instructed key officials of key regions to lead, especially Bako Gorgore of the Timbuktu axis to lead the operation against Shekau’s camp. During the operation, many of Shekau’s top fighters were either neutralised or already working with ISWAP. This, no doubt made it easy to capture Shekau.

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According to the U.S. Department of State, Boko Haram under Shekau and its offshoots are responsible for the displacement of over 2.5 million Nigerians, with approximately 300,000 seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.

His death is coming in a period where different forms of terrorism, has become the other of the day; if you checked the news, you will either see gunmen kidnapping, Fulani herdsmen attack, etc has become the other of things in the country.

However, what we are not checking recently is ISWAP; this group maintains a formidable force and boost of a strong international network.

If willingly, this group could kill Shekau for power, that is, to maintain supremacy in the Northern region, how much damage they could do to Nigerians and those we share borders with, in the coming period.

Shekau arsenal contains an enormous cache of arms; He has always been reported to be obsessed with keeping weapons because he trusted nobody believing it would increase the chances of him getting overthrown.

Now, ISWAP has completely taken over Boko Haram’s Sambisa camp, what I believe we should prepare for now is a strong wave of terrorism attack that can come from them. This, moreover, is in the fact they may end up worsening the insurgency in the Northeast.

Let hope Shekau’s death doesn’t create a positive unification among ISWAP members and leaderless Boko Haram members because if it does we are in soup.

I strongly hope that this is the period we should channel the president attention to a promise he made when elected in March 2015: “we shall spare no effort until we defeat terrorism.