Former presidential spokesman Garba Shehu has refuted claims by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan that Boko Haram once nominated Muhammadu Buhari as a mediator, describing the statement as false and politically motivated.
Shehu, who served as Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the late President Buhari, said Jonathan’s assertion was an attempt to manipulate public opinion ahead of the 2027 elections.
Jonathan is making a false start,” Shehu declared. “At no point did Boko Haram leaders, Muhammed Yusuf or Abubakar Shekau, nominate Buhari for any role in their dialogue with the government.
On the contrary, Shekau consistently denounced and threatened him because their ideologies were irreconcilable.
He pointed out that Buhari himself narrowly survived a Boko Haram bomb attack in Kaduna in 2014, which left members of his staff wounded, an event Shehu said proved the terrorists never regarded him as a mediator but as a target.
Citing records from 2012, Shehu recalled that Buhari had publicly denied any knowledge of being nominated.
The then National Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Buba Galadima, had told journalists that Buhari dismissed the report as mere speculation, noting that no one ever contacted him directly.
According to Shehu, the misleading narrative originated from a faction of Boko Haram, led by Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulaziz, which staged a press conference in Maiduguri and listed Buhari alongside other northern leaders as potential negotiators.
He stressed that Shekau himself disowned Abdulaziz and branded the announcement illegitimate.
The former CPC publicity secretary, Rotimi Fashekun, had also criticised Jonathan’s administration at the time, accusing it of exploiting Buhari’s alleged nomination to distract Nigerians from widespread corruption scandals.
Shehu insisted that Jonathan’s revival of the claim in 2025 is “a distortion of history” and urged Nigerians to see it for what it is, a political tactic.
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