Shekau " I am still in charge"

Leader of the Boko Haram sect, Abubakar Shekau has again resurfaced in a recording and denied claims by Chadian president, Idriss Deby that he has been replaced by another sect member.Mr Deby claimed that Boko Haram was no longer led by Abubakar Shekau and that his successor was open to talks.“There is someone apparently called Mahamat Daoud who is said to have replaced Abubakar Shekau and he want to negotiate with the Nigerian government,” Deby said.The Boko Haram leader denied that he had been killed or ousted as chief of the extremist group in an audio recording released yesterday attributed to him by security experts.In the eight-minute Hausa-language message, Abubakar Shekau denied claims by Chadian leader Idriss Deby that he had been replaced and called the president a “hypocrite” and a “tyrant”.“It is indeed all over the global media of infidels that I am dead or that I am sick and incapacitated and has lost influence in the affairs of religion,” he said in the recording released on social media obtained by AFP.“It should be understood that this is false. This is indeed a lie. If it were true, my voice wouldn’t have been heard, now that I am speaking,” Shekau said.Mr Deby declared that efforts to combat neighbouring Nigeria’s Boko Haram jihadists had succeeded in “decapitating” the group and would be wrapped up “by the end of the year”.“Gratitude be to Allah and with his help, I have not disappeared. I am still alive and I am not dead. And I will not die until my time.”