Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai has ordered the theater commander of operation Lafiya Dole, Ibrahim Attahiru, and members of the elite force at the forefront of the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency in the north eastern part of the country a forty day ultimatum to capture the elusive leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau.
In a statement made available to newsmen and signed by Army spokesman, Sani Usman, the chief of Army Staff directed officers and men of operation Lafiya Dole to use all the Arsenal at their disposal to locate the Boko Haram leader.
The statement read, “Today, Friday 21st July 2017, the chief of army staff, Nigerian army, lieutenant general Tukur Yusufu Buratai, has directed the theater commander, operation lafiya dole, major general Ibrahim Attahiru, to capture Abubakar Shekau, the so-called and self-styled leader of Boko Haram terrorist group, dead or alive.”
“The theater commander has further been directed to do so within 40 days.
“He is to employ all arsenal at the disposal of the theater command to smoke out Shekau wherever he is hiding in Nigeria.
“The general public is please requested to also assist and volunteer information that would lead to the accomplishment of this task.”
The Nigeria Army and its Camerounian counterpart had on several occasions claimed to have killed the Boko Haram leader only for him to surface a few weeks later to taunt the military via a video message.
Shekau is believed to be hiding somewhere in the Sambisa forest that the Nigerian Army overran sometime last year.
His last video appearance was in June where he displayed military hardware he claimed his men ceased from the military when his men ambushed a police convoy conveying the corpse of a dead female police officer.