Former presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu has refuted former President Goodluck Jonathan’s claim that Boko Haram once nominated ex-President Muhammadu Buhari to mediate peace talks with the Federal Government.
In a statement released on Friday and titled “Boko Haram did not nominate Buhari as their mediator,” Shehu said Jonathan’s assertion was “entirely false” and politically motivated.
Jonathan had made the claim on Thursday at the public presentation of Scars, a book written by former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor (retd).
Speaking at the event, the former president said Boko Haram insurgents once listed Buhari as their preferred representative in negotiations with the government.
Jonathan said, “One of the committees we set up then, the Boko Haram nominated Buhari to lead their team to negotiate with the government. I felt that if they had chosen Buhari, it might have been easier to reach peace when he became president. But the insurgency is still there till today.”
Responding, Shehu said Jonathan’s remarks were an attempt to rewrite history ahead of a possible 2027 political comeback.
“Neither Muhammed Yusuf nor Abubakar Shekau, the deceased leaders of Boko Haram, ever nominated Muhammadu Buhari for any such role,” he said.
“In fact, Shekau routinely denounced Buhari and even plotted to kill him.”
Shehu recalled that Buhari narrowly escaped a Boko Haram bomb attack in Kaduna in 2014, which left some of his aides injured.
Shehu traced the confusion to a 2012 press conference in Maiduguri by a faction of the sect led by Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, who named Buhari and several northern elders as possible mediators.
He clarified that the faction’s statement was immediately disowned by Boko Haram’s main leadership under Shekau, who insisted Abdulaziz had “no mandate” to speak on their behalf.
“At that time, Buhari himself publicly denied any knowledge of the supposed nomination,” Shehu added, quoting then-CPC National Secretary Buba Galadima: “As at 10pm yesterday when I spoke with him, he said he has not even heard about it… since nobody has contacted him as a person, he would not speak to the press.”
The issue became a campaign flashpoint in the buildup to the 2015 elections. The late CPC Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashekun, had accused Jonathan’s PDP government of weaponising the rumour.
“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,” Fashekun said at the time, describing Buhari as “a patriot who commands respect across Nigeria’s ethno-religious lines.”
He further alleged that the PDP was exploiting insecurity for political gain, claiming there were “three variants of Boko Haram, the original sect, a criminal faction, and the most lethal of all, the Political Boko Haram, represented by the PDP-led government.”
Concluding his statement, Shehu said Jonathan should “look for a better story to tell Nigerians” if he intends to contest the 2027 presidential election.
