Former presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, has refuted claims that late former President Muhammadu Buhari was ever nominated by Boko Haram as its negotiator.
Shehu clarified that neither the group’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf, nor his successor, Abubakar Shekau, ever made such a nomination.
Instead, he said the terrorist organisation consistently denounced and even threatened Buhari.
Reacting to assertions by former President Goodluck Jonathan that Boko Haram had chosen Buhari to mediate with the Federal Government, Shehu described the claim as “false and misleading.”
He recalled that Buhari himself narrowly escaped a bomb attack on his convoy in Kaduna in 2014, an incident widely linked to the insurgents.
Shehu also pointed out that the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Buhari’s former party, publicly rejected the alleged nomination at the time.
The denial was issued in a statement by the then National Secretary, Engr. Buba Galadima, who stressed that Buhari had no knowledge of such an appointment.
According to Shehu, the speculation began when a Boko Haram faction, led by Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, named Buhari and some northern elders as preferred mediators during a press conference in Maiduguri in 2012.
“Shekau himself disowned the claim and said Abdulaziz had no mandate to speak for the group,” Shehu added.