Multiple Nigerian media outlets reported last week that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has died or been mortally wounded in a confrontation with fighters from the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), a group that separated from Shekau’s Boko Haram in 2016. The Nigerian government has not confirmed the reports and is investigating. The caution is well-placed: Shekau has been reported dead at least four times since he became the leader of Boko Haram in 2009 following the police killing of founder Mohammed Yusuf.

Today’s announcement by the Nigerian lower legislative chamber partly rescinding last week’s decision to throw out of five key gender-equality bills is a significant victory for women’s rights advocates in the region. It is also evidence that well-coordinated political pressure by civil society organizations can produce real change.

Largely overlooked by the Western media, there is an escalating conflict between Nigeria’s Shiite minority, some of whom are organized into the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), and Nigeria’s secular government, that recalls Boko Harams treatment in 2009.

In September 2018, there were reports that Nur was murdered by his own faction because he was too “soft”, that he misappropriated ransom money, and even that he might have been open to a dialogue with the Nigerian government. In late February 2018, ISWA reportedly replaced al-Barnawi with Abu Abdullah Ibn Umar al-Barnawi.

This is a guest post by Alex Thurston. Alex is the author of  Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics, and is an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Ser…