LAGOS, Nigeria — Last month, we Nigerians received some startling news from the army: Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed some 3,000 people in northern Nigeria over the last four years, “might have died.”

The government has provided no proof of this claim. No corpse has been displayed, and Boko Haram, whose name loosely translates as “Western education is sinful,” has been silent on the matter. Just a few days ago, Boko Haram militants set up a roadblock in the northern town of Benisheik and shot at least 87 people to death as they were trying to flee.

This would not be the first time we had heard false rumors of his death — there was one in 2009 — and many Nigerians believe the announcement was merely a ruse, designed to provoke Mr. Shekau into making a public appearance or statement, in the hope of flushing him out. The theory is not so crazy: Boko Haram released a video a few days before the August announcement that purported to show Mr. Shekau, but the government said the man in the video was “an impostor.”

Given that the United States has placed a $7 million bounty on his head — a figure that puts him well up there in the terrorists’ league — there is plenty of incentive to get hold of Mr. Shekau, especially for soldiers in the three states in northern Nigeria where the sect is believed to be holding out, and where a state of emergency was declared a few months ago.