Garba Shehu, former media aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, have debunked the claim by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, that Buhari was once a mediator for Boko Haram during his administration, telling him to look for another story to tell Nigerians.
Garba Shehu reacting to this allegation in a statement on Friday night faulted the Jonathan’s claim, stating that Boko Haram routinely denounced and threatened Buhari, and their ideologies were in direct opposition.
The statement read: “We are compelled to make a response to a terrible statement made on the late president Muhammadu Buhari by his predecessor in office, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, to the effect that Boko Haram had nominated him to represent them in a dialogue with government.
“If this is a campaign statement towards his bid for the presidency in 2027, we want to say to him that “Mr. Jonathan, you are making a false start.” “Muhammed Yusuf or Abubakar Shekau, the deceased leaders of the Boko Haram terrorist group, never nominated Muhammadu Buhari for any such role. In fact, Shekau routinely denounced and threatened Buhari, and their ideologies were in direct opposition.
“In 2014, Muhammadu Buhari escaped a bomb attack on his life by Boko Haram in Kaduna, in which his personal staff suffered various degrees of injury.”
According to the statement, Buhari’s campaigns focused on fighting Boko Haram and restoring security to Nigeria whenever he became president, putting him in direct opposition to the terrorist group’s leader. It said contrary to the news making the rounds in those years that the radical Islamist extremist –Boko Haram had nominated General Muhammadu Buhari as the mediator between them and the Federal Government of Nigeria in the proposed peace talk, the retired Military General denied knowledge of his nomination.
“What led to the misleading information was that a faction of the terrorist group, possibly sponsored by Buhari’s opponents, staged a press conference in Maiduguri, Borno State, through a certain Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, who claimed to be the Boko Haram commander in charge of Southern and Northern Borno, saying that the sect would prefer the former military leader, General Muhammadu Buhari, ex-Yobe State governor and the then Senator, now late Bukar Abba Ibrahim, first Nigerian Minister of Petroleum, Shettima Ali Monguno, also late, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Insecurity in the North-East, Ambassador Gaji Gatimari, and other prominent members of the Borno Emirate to mediate between them and the federal government.
“Abdulaziz was roundly condemned by the leaders of Boko Haram who claimed that he had “no mandate of their leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau.”
