Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has stated that incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari is alive, describing as “ridiculous” theories suggesting otherwise.
In a video, the 84-year-old who served as head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as president from 1999 to 2007, said it’s “ridiculous to the extreme” to speculate that the 78-year-old had passed on.
“Somebody came to me,” Obasanjo began, “a very high, up person, saying ‘tell me about this talk of Buhari not being Buhari’?”
The former army general went on: “I said, ‘do you believe them?’ He said, ‘well, it is in the social media. I said ‘how will Buhari die and we will not know that Buhari has died and they will bring us, somebody, from Sudan to be Buhari?’
“It’s ridiculous to the extreme,” Obasanjo stressed. “But you have it in the social media and you see people believing it.”
All Facts News recalls that presidential spokesman Femi Adesina had also echoed similar sentiments concerning the reported passage of his principal, theories fuelled by Mr Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which is seeking to break away from Nigeria.
Adesina wrote on the 78th birthday of the president saying, “This is Jubril from Sudan and not Muhammadu Buhari who had died during the medical vacation in 2017, some people say.
“You have a clone in Aso Villa, not Buhari. Idiocy, sadly believed by even some intellectuals.
“Let me tell you a story. On the day the President finally returned to the country in August 2017, after months of absence, the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Abayomi Olonisakin, was giving out his daughter in marriage.
“I had attended the church service, decked unusually in complete Agbada, with a cap to match.
“From the wedding, I went straight to the airport to join the reception party.
“We formed a welcome line as we usually do. And as the President shook each person, he had one wise crack or the other to say.
“When he got to me, he took my hand and said, ‘Adesina, this is the best I’ve seen you dressed.’
“We both laughed heartily, and the television cameras captured it. I remember that many people asked me later what had tickled me and the president, that we laughed so uproariously.
“Jubril from Suda ? Would he know my name as Adesina ? Would he know I rarely wear Agbada ? How ridiculous can some people be!”