Malam Garba Shehu, spokesman to the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, has accused ex-president Goodluck Jonathan of lying against Buhari.
He spoke in reaction to Jonathan’s claims earlier today that Boko Haram insurgents chose Buhari as their negotiator.
NATIONAL POST reported that Jonathan, while speaking at the public presentation of a book authored by former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor (retd.), in Abuja, said Boko Haram chose Buhari to negotiate with the Nigerian government on their behalf.
Jonathan said he had expected Buhari to end the insurgency soon after he took over power, but it did not happen.
However, Shehu has countered him, alleging that the former president was playing politics ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
He said, “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. 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.
“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.
“To win in 2027, Dr. Jonathan should look for a better story to tell Nigerians.”
