After bouts of rumour on his death and transformation of Jubrin of Sudan to replace ‘dead Buhari’, President Muhammadu Buhari has cast such claims on the sandy soil, saying “The ignorant rumours are not surprising.”
Buhari (@MBuhari), Sunday, tweeted “One of the questions that came up today in my meeting with Nigerians in Poland was on the issue of whether I‘ve been cloned or not. The ignorant rumours are not surprising — when I was away on medical vacation last year a lot of people hoped I was dead.”
He again tweeted “Poor @ProfOsinbajo, even he had to deal with the rumours — Some people reached out to him to consider them to be his Vice President because they assumed I was dead. That embarrassed him a lot; we discussed it when he visited me while I was convalescing.
“I can assure you all that this is the real me. Later this month I will celebrate my 76th birthday. And I’m still going strong!”
The rumour mill was fuelled by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
The earliest online mention of the claim found by AFP was in a video posted by Twitter user @sam_ezeh on September 3, 2017. How I was smuggled out of Nigeria — Nnamdi Kanu. The video has since been shared more than 5,000 times on Facebook and Twitter.
In it, Kanu, speaks to his supporters and says Buhari had actually died. “The man you are looking at in the television is not Buhari… His name is Jubril, he’s from Sudan. After extensive surgery they brought him back,” he says. In separate broadcasts on the outlawed pirate radio station Radio Biafra, Kanu has called Buhari “Jubril Al-Sudani”.
Further, he threatened to release the DNA result of the current President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari – whom he alleged is an impostor from Sudan.
Kanu in his live Radio Biafra Broadcast November 17, 2018 claimed he has the DNA of the alleged impostor, Jubril.
He said, “They should arrest Jubril and convey a national unity that will grant Biafra referendum or else I will release the DNA results of Jubril and Buhari and you will see not just Nigeria crumble, but West Africa. I love the people in Nigeria so I don’t want an anarchy upon them but they should do the right thing.”
During the recent turbaning of Atiku Abubakar in Adamawa, President Olusegun Obasanjo asked Buhari to come out and defend the rumour that he was not dead, saying “When people alleged that I was dead, Icame and defended myself that I was not dead.”
In another clime, Kanu claimed that the Nigerian Diplomat who was murdered in Sudan was killed for his involvement in the recruitment of Jubril Aminu who he alleged was transformed to replace ‘dead Buhari’ in London.
The IPOB leader promised to shock Nigerians with his revelation of how Jubril Aminu was transformed to replace ‘dead Buhari.’
While sympathizing with the family of the deceased, he urged the Sudanese Police to uncover the person in Aso rock, behind the death of Habibu Almu.
Kanu tweeted, “My heart goes out to the family of Habibu Almu the diplomat brutally murdered in Sudan over his involvement in the recruitment of Jubril the impostor.
“He’s gone but truth cannot be killed. Sudanese police/Interpol must uncover who in Aso Rock did this & bring them to justice.”
However, Senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, queried that there has been a conspiracy theory lately, that the man in Aso Rock is not President Muhammadu Buhari but a foreigner ruling in his stead.
Sani dismissed such claims, saying there’s no Jibril anywhere, as purported by Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB).
According to Kanu, president Buhari, died many months ago, and that the man, ruling Nigeria is Jibril, from Sudan.
Kanu recently stated that the man impersonating Buhari, is now on the run in Paris.
Sani, in a tweet on Thursday said that Buhari is healthy and that, Jibril is an imaginary and mythical character.
In his words:
There’s no one and nothing like Jibril El sudan. Caesar is healthy and has no double but you can literally refer Jibrin as an imaginative and mythical character in Shakespearean Nigeria.
It’s natural to creatively invent characters and promote conjectures in our theatre of the absurd.
Former military ruler Buhari, 75, has made several trips to London for medical treatment since mid-2016. Initially, the presidency claimed he had a “persistent ear infection”. But concern mounted from early last year about his prolonged absences, prompting speculation the condition was more serious and might affect his ability to stay in power.
A lack of information about the exact nature of his illness, his gaunt features and a reduction in public appearances have fed speculation about his well-being.
Claims about Buhari’s identity emerged a month after Buhari returned from another lengthy medical trip to the British capital.
On April 5, 2018, Femi Fani-Kayode, a former government special advisor and minister under president Olusegun Obasanjo, repeated the claim on Twitter (1). A similar post on his Facebook page was shared more than 400 times.
Press releases and statements by IPOB and its sympathisers have repeated the claim (2). The rumour appears to have been fuelled further by a real-life event in May this year, when a Nigerian diplomat — Habibu Almu — was found dead in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
Nigeria’s foreign ministry said on May 14 that Almu had been “stabbed to death” and that a Sudanese woman of Nigerian origin had been arrested. Sudanese police said the killing did not appear to be politically motivated but Kanu and others have claimed the death was linked to an apparent cover-up of Buhari’s death (3).
Buhari’s appearance has come under scrutiny in many posts. One post compares Buhari apparently writing with his right hand in one photograph and his left in another. But analysis indicates the image of the right-handed Buhari had been reversed. One video even speculates on how a dead Buhari could have been operated on to transfer his appearance to “Jubril from Sudan”, showing a scene from the 1997 film “Face/Off” (4). – What conclusion can we draw?
