Loyalists of former President Muhammadu Buhari, have faulted the claim by former President Goodluck Jonathan that the Boko Haram terrorists nominated Buhari to represent them in their negotiations with the then government.
Spokesman of the late President Buhari’s loyalists and former media aide to the President, Mallam Garba Shehu, told Jonathan to look for another story to tell Nigerians.
Shehu in a statement on Friday night debunked Jonathan’s claim, pointing out that in 2014, Buhari escaped a bomb attack on his life by Boko Haram in Kaduna, in which his personal staff suffered various degrees of injury.
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.
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“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.