Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau possibly dead

A grainy and gruesome photo has fueled speculation that the infamous leader of the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram is dead, even as the African nation's army presses fighters in the northern territory and the fate of hundreds of hostages hangs in the balance.

The military in neighboring Cameroon claims to have killed Abubakar Shekau, the warlord seen earlier this year in a monstrous video vowing to sell nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls, and even released a photo purportedly of his corpse. Nigerian security forces are trying to authenticate the report, and officials in the U.S., which has aided Nigeria's hunt for Shekau, declined to comment when asked by Fox News if they are checking into the validity of the image.

"We are aware of the reports, but can’t confirm anything at this time," a U.S. State department official said.

There is no question that the man shown in the photo released by Cameroon bears a strong resemblance to Shekau, but the terror leader reportedly uses body doubles to confound his enemies. The recent report is not the first time that Shekau was claimed to have been killed, although the statement from Cameroon, which has been battling Boko Haram at the border, and the photo, make this instance more compelling than others.

Cameroon officials say Shekau was killed in battle near the northeastern city of Konduga. According to Bloomberg.com, the Nigerian Armed Forces tweeted out a posting claiming that more than 60 Boko Haram militants were killed in the battle and that a senior leader had been captured.

Military officials in the region had claimed last year that Shekau was killed in a battle on June 30. He later appeared in a video sent to media outlets to prove that he was still alive.

Boko Haram, which claims to have established a caliphate in the town of Gwoa, and according to Human Rights Watch, has killed more than 2,000 innocent people in the first half of 2014. But the group gained international infamy when it abducted nearly 300 schoolgirls from the northern town of Chibok in April. Although dozens are believed to have escaped, 200 or more remain captive in the rugged wilds of northern Nigeria.

Nigerian officials, along with the international committee of the Red Cross, have been involved in talks with Boko Haram in an effort to negotiate the release of the school girls. According to reports, the officials met numerous times with senior-level Boko Haram members in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. The possibility of a swap was discussed in which 30 Boko Haram commanders in Nigerian custody, including Kabiru Sokoto, a senior member of Boko Haram who was convicted last December of a fatal church bombing on Christmas Day in 2011 in the town of Madallah, would be released in exchange for the school girls.

However, the talks appeared to stall after the Boko Haram members suggested an even swap which the Nigerian government refused, demanding that all the remaining girls held captive be released. The members said they would bring the offer to Shekau's inner circle.

Boko Haram was founded in in 2002 in Nigeria's Borno State, where it campaigned, mostly peacefully, for a Shariah state. But in 2009, after founder Mohammed Yusef was executed in Nigeria, Boko Haram took a violent turn, embracing terrorism, forcing conversions of Christians, and orchestrating kidnappings and bombings. In recent years, Boko Haram has emerged as one of the world's most dangerous and violent Islamic terrorist sects.

The Obama administration has pledged to help the Nigerian government attempt to rescue the girls, and has assembled a team of military and law enforcement agents to provide logistical support in tracking the group. Noko Haram is believed to be in Nigeria's northeastern Borno State, hiding in the vast Sambisa Forest in northeastern Nigeria. Experts have said the kidnapped girls could serve as human shields, preventing the Nigerian military from bombing the rugged and impenetrable wilderness, as well as becoming the child brides of Shekau's fighters.

Fox News

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Stephen Keshi ranks Africa's best football coach

 Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi has been ranked as the best national team in Africa with the sacked Ghana coach Kwesi Appiah placing second on the continent, in the latest ranking released by a leading coaching statistics agency.

Keshi continue to top the poll for coaches on the continent while Appiah leads the pack who are chasing the Nigeria coach as the best in Africa.

Coaching rating agency, Football Coach World Ranking, named the former Black Stars coach in the 32nd position while Keshi is ranked in the 14th position.

This means Appiah has improved by ten places in the ranking as he previously occupied the 42nd position in the last ranking in April while Keshi went up by nine places from his 23rd position in the previous global ranking.

The ranking of the top fifty coaches is dominated by coaches who coached at the World Cup with the top 15 almost exclusively for coaches who excelled at the World Cup.

World Cup winner Joachim Low of Germany tops the ranking and he is followed by Spain’s Vicente Del Bosque in 2nd place while Oscar Tabarez of Uruguay placed 3rd.

The ranking favours coaches who are active in their jobs who those who have been jobless freely tumble down the ranking.

1.Joachim Low
2.Del Bosque
3.C.Prandelli
4.Paolo Jorge Gomes Bento
5.Jurgen Klinsmann
6.L Van Gaal
7.Fernando Santos
8.Jose Pekerman
10.Jose Manuel de la Torre
11.Luis Felipe Scolari
12.Jorge Luis Pinto
13.Marc Wilmots
14.Stephen Keshi
15.N Pumpido
16.Reinaldo Rueda
17.Ottmar Hitzfeld
18.Julio Valdes
19.Safet Susic
20.Alberto Zaccheroni
21.D.Deschamps
22.Eric Hamren
23.Alejandro Sabella
24.Fernando Suarez
25.Sergio Apraham
26.Jorge Sampaoli
27.Morten Olsen
28.Fabio Capello
29.R.Hodgson
30.Bob Bradley
31.Cesar Farias
32.James Kwesi Appiah

GhanaSoccerNet

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Nigerian forces implement turture to extract confessions

Torture has become such an integral part of policing in Nigeria that many stations have an informal torture officer, Amnesty International says.

Both the military and police use a wide range of torture methods including beatings, nail and teeth extractions and other sexual violence, it says.

One woman accused of theft in Lagos said she was sexually assaulted, and had tear gas sprayed into her vagina.

Nigeria's police told the BBC the force had a "zero tolerance for torture".

"It may happen and when it does happen it is appropriately dealt with," police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu told the BBC Hausa service.

"Every officer in Nigerian police has a duty post - there is no duty post for torture," he said.

"If somebody's tortured let him please report to the next higher authority and then action will be taken."

Entitled Welcome to Hell Fire, the Amnesty report says people are often detained in large dragnet operations and tortured as punishment, to extort money or to extract "confessions" as a way to solve cases.

Extrajudicial executions
The use of torture is particularly extreme in the north-east in the war against Boko Haram Islamist militants, Amnesty says.

The UK-based rights group says between 5,000 and 10,000 people have been arrested there since 2009, and executions in overcrowded detention facilities are common.

A teenage boy, pictured at the top, was among 50 people arrested by the army in Pokiskum in Yobe state last year on suspicion being a member of the Boko Haram.

At the time he was 15 years old and spent three weeks in custody in Damaturu and said he was beaten continuously with gun butts, batons and machetes.

Arrested in 2013 along with other hotel staff after two guns and a human skull were found. They were beaten, detained in a van for hours and then taken to an anti-robbery squad centre in Awkuzu.

"I was thrown inside a cell. I noticed a written sign on the wall 'Welcome to hell fire'… I was taken to the interrogation room.

"There was a police officer at one end with two suspects who were chained together.

"I saw ropes streaming down from the ceiling tops, bags of sand elevated on the perimeter wall fence of the hall and all types of rod and metal in different shapes and sizes.

"I heard shouts and screams from torture victims… I saw buckets of water on standby in case anybody faints or opts to die before appending [their] signature to already written statements."

The officer questioned him, tied his hands and legs, passed a rod between them and elevated him from a perimeter wall. They poured water on him whenever he passed out. He was charged with murder, has since been freed on bail and is awaiting trial.

The boy told Amnesty that melted plastic was poured on his back and he was asked to walk and roll over broken bottles in a hole, and cold water was poured on him and others.

A former soldier who served at Damaturu confirmed that torture was routinely used at the camp.

"An electrified baton is used on a person to make them talk," he told Amnesty.

"They tie people with their hands stretched behind their arms… people kept like that for six or seven hours lose their hands, people kept like that much longer can even die," he said.

Amnesty says the report was compiled using 500 interviews during 20 separate visits to Nigeria since 2007.

"Across the country, the scope and severity of torture inflicted on Nigeria's women, men and children by the authorities supposed to protect them is shocking to even the most hardened human rights observer," Amnesty's Netsanet Belay said in a statement.

The 24-year-old woman sexually assaulted with tear gas says the abuse has left her with a permanent injury.

"A policewoman took me to a small room, told me to remove everything I was wearing. She spread my legs wide and fired tear gas into my vagina… I was asked to confess that I was an armed robber… I was bleeding… up till now I still feel pain in my womb," she said.

She has been charged with theft and remains in custody awaiting trial 10 months after her arrest.

Even though torture is prohibited under the constitution, Amnesty notes that Nigeria's politicians have yet to pass a bill to criminalise it.

It says security forces enjoy a climate of impunity and the criminal justice system is riddled with corruption.

BBC

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Prophet T.B. Joshua under fire for building collapse in Lagos, Nigeria

He’s the charismatic Nigerian preacher whose prophecies of death and disaster, and improbable claims to cure HIV and Ebola, have brought him vast wealth and a devout following among many of Africa’s most powerful politicians and celebrities.

But it’s a disaster that T.B. Joshua failed to prophesize that has gotten him into serious trouble. One of his church buildings in Lagos, Nigeria, has collapsed, killing at least 70 people, including 67 South African pilgrims – the biggest loss of life among South Africans outside the country in recent history.

The disaster has shone a spotlight on one of Africa’s most controversial televangelists. The Nigerian preacher has become famous for his estimated wealth of $10-million to $15-million (U.S.), his weekly sermons to 15,000 people, his loyal following from African presidents and prime ministers, and his claim that he prophesized everything from the death of Michael Jackson to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

When the five-storey guesthouse suddenly collapsed into rubble at his church headquarters last Friday with hundreds of pilgrims inside, Mr. Joshua at first tried to minimize the disaster. On his Facebook page, his ministry dismissed it as a mere “incident” in which a “few people” were affected but were “being rescued.”

Later, the preacher tried to blame the Boko Haram terrorist group, claiming, bizarrely, that a mysterious low-flying airplane had caused the building’s collapse by spraying it with an unknown substance, although officials said there was no evidence of a terrorist link.

Instead, there is mounting evidence the building collapsed as a result of poor construction. Three additional storeys were being added onto the original two-storey building when it imploded. Similar collapses have become common in Nigeria, where construction regulations are often evaded, sometimes with bribes.

There are also growing allegations Mr. Joshua and the Nigerian authorities have tried to cover up the extent of the disaster. His church officials refused to allow emergency officials to participate in the rescue of survivors until Sunday. Nigerian officials were slow to co-operate with South Africa, even though an estimated 300 South African pilgrims were in the guesthouse when it collapsed.

As recently as Monday, three days after the collapse, the South African government was still struggling to find out if any of its citizens were killed. South African diplomats told local media that Nigeria was “completely stonewalling” their investigation.

Nigerian officials even allegedly told the diplomats the disaster was “not that bad.” One diplomat was quoted as saying: “When we got here, the entire building was flattened. How can it be not bad?”

South African President Jacob Zuma finally announced the deaths on Tuesday night. “We are all in grief,” he told the nation. “Not in the recent history of our country have we had this large number of our people die in one incident outside the country. The whole nation shares the pain.”

On Wednesday, International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said the information about the deaths came from South African diplomats at the scene, rather than from Nigerian authorities as one would expect. But she said she would not do any “finger-pointing.”

In Nigeria, many people vented their anger through social media, saying Mr. Joshua should not be above the law. But the reality is that he has powerful friends and huge financial resources – enough to get away with a lot in Nigeria. Thousands of his followers are reportedly pressured into donating 10 per cent of their income to him.

His disciples have included the presidents or prime ministers of Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. He is particularly beloved in South Africa, where his followers include Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, opposition leader Julius Malema and Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini.

Mr. Joshua’s vague “prophecies” have been celebrated by his fans. He gained massive publicity when he said an elderly African leader would die in 2012 – a fairly safe prediction, since so many of the 54 leaders are elderly. When Malawi’s president died, Mr. Joshua was again hailed as a prophet.

Medical experts have sharply criticized him for his claim that he can cure HIV, cancer, paralysis and even Ebola. Last month, he sent 4,000 bottles of “anointing water” to Sierra Leone to “heal” people with Ebola.

Globe and Mail

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