APC Accuses FG Of Planning To Create Fake Shekau

The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign
Organisation has raised the alarm about reports of a fake Abubakar Shekau (Boko
Haram leader) allegedly being paraded by the Federal Government, which it says
the government intends to use to create an impression that it is winning the
war on terrorism.

It said credible sources had alerted the APC that the fake
Shekau might become a tool to blackmail members of the opposition “by coaching
the phantom terror chief” to say he was working for the opposition party
candidate, Maj. Gen Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), in order to link its presidential
candidate to terrorism as it had attempted but failed in the past.

A statement by the Director of Media and Publicity of the
APCOPC, Malam Garba Shehu, wondered where the “new Shekau” would come from
after government, at several times in the past, announced that it had killed
the insurgents’ leader.

“The charge to the military, that they should catch Shekau
alive by the President in the last 24 hours, lends credence to the report that
indeed a fake Shekau is about being created,” it said.

The statement noted that “the profile of the leader of the
insurgents, Shekau, of a dedicated ideologue,” presupposed that the man was not
likely to allow himself to be caught alive.

“It is both contradictory to the ideology he preaches and
the psychological profile that the world has of him that Shekau would allow
himself to be caught alive,” the statement said.

The APCPCO recalled that the attack in Kaduna, on the
party’s presidential candidate, was believed by most Nigerians that it was
perpetrated by the Boko Haram.

It added, “The police that are constitutionally empowered to
investigate and report on such incidents have not contradicted the widespread
belief that this was a Boko Haram’s attack.

“The view of the APC is that it does not make sense for
General Muhammadu Buhari to be in league with, or be associated in any way with
people who have set out to kill him.”

Punch