Exposed: How Shekau Made Boko Haram More Ruthless

The attacks by Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Muhammad Shekau has grown so ruthless over the years that even former Islamist allies have cut ties.



Abubakar Muhammad Shekau in the middle

A report last month by the International Crisis Group (ICG) said that Boko Haram has grown more ruthless, violent and destructive with Shekau at the helm of affairs.

According to the ICG report, Shekau's extremism can best be highlighted by the decision of Ansaru, a Boko Haram offshoot which has kidnapped foreigners and published their execution online to cut ties because they didn't approve indiscriminate killings and Shekau's lack of tact.

Shekau who was born in a village in Nigeria's northeastern Yobe state on the border with Niger had a traditional Islamic education in neighbouring Borno state, where Boko Haram (which loosely translates as "Western education is forbidden) was founded more than a decade ago by the cleric Mohammed Yusuf.

Shekau joined Yusuf's movement which believes that the prevalence of Western education and values were to blame for many of Nigeria's problems, including egregious corruption and crippling poverty.

Though there were significant outbursts of violence under Yusuf's administration, the group was only committed to spreading sharia (Islamic law) across northern Nigeria and before Yusuf's death, Shekau was said to have accused him of "being too soft".

With the death of Yusuf, Shekau took Boko Haram down a new direction, burying Yusuf's ideology and anti-corruption teachings. His repeated attacks on defenceless civilians, including mass kidnappings and the slaughter of scores of students in their sleep goes to show how ruthless he's become.

Shekau has been wrecking havoc across the nation and has been releasing videos to boast about his escapades. In his latest video, he claimed responsibility for the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a community in Borno and threatened to sell them off.

The United States has since declared Shekau a global terrorist and put a $7 million (5.3 million euros) bounty on his head.