The ceasefire agreement which the Boko Haram Amnesty Committee claims to have reached with the Islamic insurgents has been outrightly denied by the leader, Abubakar Shekau. In avideo just released in Borno State, headquarters of Boko Haram and from which it was believed to have been dislodged by Nigerian troops, Shekau, who remains at large, disowned Sheikh Abdulazeez who announced the ceasefire on behalf of the group. He also threatened more attacks in states such as Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Taraba and Adamawa.

A translation of the Hausa Language message published by Vanguard newspaper reads:

“May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you all. This is an important message to all people.

“There is this wicked rumour making the rounds that we have dialogued with government of Nigeria which led to a ceasefire on our part. We have also heard how some of our operations and attacks are being credited to criminals. As such the security agents have been killing our armed members in the name of criminals. We have seen how our members who were out on holy mission are being attacked and killed with the label of criminals.

“We are telling the world that whoever kills any of our members in the name of being criminals, would surely be avenged unless such person repents now.

“We are stating it categorically that we are not in any dialogue or ceasefire agreement with anyone. And we have never asked anybody in the name Abdulazeez to represent me, Abubakar Shekau, the leader of this movement.

“I swear by Allah that Abdulazeez or whatever he calls himself did not get any authority from me to represent me in any capacity. I do not know him. And if we per adventure encounter Abulazeez and his group, I swear by Allah we are going to mete them with the grave judgment that Allah has prescribed for their likes in the holy book.

“I want the world to know that we have no dialogue with government. I have on several occasions attempted to pass this message across via the Internet and Youtube and we later realised that some agents of government kept removing our messages from the net and preventing its online publication so that our messages will not be heard. They know that If the world hears our position on this fake dialogue, their efforts of deceit would be exposed.

“We are also sending this strong message to the people of Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Taraba, Adamawa, and any state that whoever kills any of our members should await a grave retaliation from us. God knows that we don’t kill unjustly except those that conspired against us or those that directly fight us, or the government that is waging war upon Allah and His Prophet. We will continue waging war against them until we succeeded in establish an Islamic state in Nigeria.

“This message is prepared by me and targeted towards clarifying the issue of ceasefire. We have never had any dialogue with anyone. How would we have had dialogue with the government when our members are being killed and detained in cells, both women and children. Do you call this dialogue? That is not dialogue or truce in Islam. In Islam there are condition prescribed for us to go into dialogue, and there are also situation in which we cannot go in to dialogue. What we are doing now is what is prescribed for us by Allah and his holy prophet. We are workers in the vine yard of Allah.

“We are not out to cause destructions, but correct the ills of the society. And Allah is more powerful than all, and He has the might. Allah will surely assist us to victory. This is my message to you. If you have not heard from me all this while, now my message should have reached you all.”

News Express reports that the Boko Haram Amnesty Committee (formally known as Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in North) headed by Nigeria’s Minister of Special Duties, Alhaji Tanimu Turaki, had on Monday announced a ceasefire agreement with Boko Haram exactly 82 days after President Jonathan raised the 25-man committee and gave it 90 days to seal a deal with the insurgents. The announcement was corroborated by Sheikh Abdulazeez, who claimed to be acting on behalf of Shekau.

•Photo shows Shekau flanked by aides.

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