Port Harcourt — We now know what happened at Aso Villa in 2017, shortly after the then President Muhammed Buhari returned to Nigeria from a long medical stay in London. Nigerians were spooked over reports that Buhari, after being absent for such a long time, would work from home. Something was wrong, we all thought, and social media went into overdrive. IPOB’s Nnamdi Kanu floated a theory – the Buhari at Aso Vila was not the real Buhari. He was a body double flown in from Sudan.
Then the presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu stepped in with magisterial authority and offered an explanation. Rats forced the relocation, he said. Buhari was able, ready and willing to work from his office but for rats who feasted on cables. It was so bad that Nigeria’s Number 1 citizen had no choice than to work from home until the miscreants – and the threat they posed to the seat of power – were decisively neutralised.
We now know he lied. He lied to more than 200 million people and the rest of the world who were keenly watching developments on the health of the President. Mallam Shehu admitted the matter in the launch of his book, “According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience” launched in Abuja last week. He said it was a spin, because he “wanted the discussion to shift, to move to any other issue besides the president’s health and his ability to continue in office.” We insist it was a lie. The man, or Mallam, lied.
Garba Shehu, a graduate of Bayero University, Kano is not a small boy in the media. He began his career with Nigerian Television Authority, Sokoto in 1982, and later became the managing director of the Triumph newspapers and President of the Guild of Editors. He has been a survivor in the political terrain. He was the Special Assistant, Media to Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who appointed him as Special Assistant on Media in 2003. He continued to work for him after he left office, until he was appointed as Director, Media and Publicity to the APDC in 2015. When Buhari won and took office, the man became Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity to the President, leaving the post at the end of the second tenure of that administration.
He took no prisoners in his style of communication. He hit hard. With his disparaging comments on the PDP and Abubakar, you won’t believe he ever associated with both. He slipped too. In the infamous abduction of more than 300 students in Katsina State in 2020, Shehu revised the number to 10, against the information given by the state government. He apologised later.
His admission of the lie he told raises important questions. How many more lies did he tell? And how many lies are we being told now? I was thinking hard on the reason for the timing of the confession. Why is he singing now? Is he trying to sell his memoirs, or is it an act of penance?
Shehu once described himself as “a driver’s son” born without a silver spoon. He said of his work and life: “I have made many mistakes and I believe many still lie ahead. Nothing will be helped by talking about them here. What I do is pray to my maker to forgive me.” Let’s hope Nigerians forgive him.
