Deranged Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau today sunk to the lowest heights of depravity when he vowed to sell more than 200 students abducted by his group from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, exactly three weeks ago.

“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said in a video first obtained by AFP.

“There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women,” he continued, according to a CNN translation from the local Hausa language.

In the video of nearly hour in duration, Shekau, the name of whose group Boko Haram means “Western education is sin,” repeatedly called for an end to Western education.

“Girls, you should go and get married,” he said.

Earlier reports had claimed that some of the girls abducted from their hostel in the night of April 14, had been taken across the border and sold as sex slaves.

On Friday, Nigerian authorities updated the number of girls kidnapped to 276. At least 53 of the girls escaped, leaving 223 in the hands of their captors, police said.

Yesterday afternoon, the Northern States Christian and Elders Forum (NOCSEF), an affiliate of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), released the names of abducted 180 girls comprising 165 Christians and 15 Muslims.

President Goodluck Jonathan last night in his Presidential Media Chat admitted that he had no idea where the girls are being kept by their abductors but vowed to find and rescue them.

•Photo shows Boko Haram leader Shekau.