Former presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, has dismissed claims by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan that Boko Haram once nominated the late President Muhammadu Buhari to represent them in peace talks with the Federal Government.
Shehu, in a strongly worded statement on Friday, described Jonathan’s claim as false and politically motivated, insisting that Buhari was never an ally of the terrorist group but rather one of its prime targets.
He recalled that in July 2014, Buhari narrowly escaped a Boko Haram bomb attack in Kaduna, which left members of his personal staff injured. “How then could anyone in good conscience say the sect nominated him as a mediator?” Shehu asked.
According to him, Jonathan’s statement was nothing more than an attempt to score political points ahead of a possible 2027 presidential bid.
“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,” Shehu declared.
The former presidential media aide clarified that Buhari never accepted or acknowledged any nomination from Boko Haram.
He cited a 2011 statement by the then Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) National Secretary, Engr. Buba Galadima, who confirmed Buhari had no knowledge of any such appointment.
“As at 10pm yesterday when I spoke with him, he said he has not even heard about it,” Galadima had told reporters at the time. Buhari, he added, considered the reports as mere speculation and maintained that as a patriotic Nigerian, his only role was to continue praying for peace and stability in the country.
Shehu explained that the confusion arose from a press conference in Maiduguri addressed by one Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, a self-styled Boko Haram commander, who mentioned Buhari and other northern elders as potential mediators.
That claim, Shehu said, was later denounced by Boko Haram’s actual leadership under Abubakar Shekau, who insisted Abdulaziz had no mandate to speak on behalf of the sect.
He also recalled that the late CPC Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin, had at the time accused Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of weaponising the false report for political gain. Fashakin described Buhari’s alleged nomination as a diversionary tactic by a corrupt government to cover up “massive looting of the nation’s commonwealth.”
“Without any scintilla of equivocation, General Muhammadu Buhari has never been directly or remotely connected with any insurrection or insurgency against the Nigerian nation and her people. He remains the quintessential patriot,” Fashakin had said.
Shehu further alleged that it was the PDP-led government under Jonathan that fuelled insecurity, pointing to revelations by security agencies and even Jonathan’s own admission that Boko Haram elements had infiltrated his government.
He categorised the insurgents into three groups — the original Boko Haram aggrieved by the killing of their leader Mohammed Yusuf, a criminal faction motivated by money, and what he called the “Political Boko Haram,” which he said the PDP government embodied.
To the former President, Shehu had a blunt message: “To win in 2027, Dr. Jonathan should look for a better story to tell.”
