Ex- presidential aide, Garba Shehu finally admits that villa rat invasion story was a cover for Buhari’s illness

Garba Shehu, the former Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to former President Muhammadu Buhari, has disclosed that the rat invasion of the Presidential Villa narrative was made up to divert attention away from Buhari’s medical problems.

Garba Shehu revealed in his book “According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience,” which was released in Abuja on Tuesday, that he created the tale of the Villa rat invasion to deflect criticism of President Buhari’s health and ability to lead.

Join our WhatsApp group

The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, had claimed that Buhari had been replaced by a clone from Sudan named Jibrin before he returned to Nigeria on August 19, 2017, following over three months of medical care in the United Kingdom.

Following  this, some Nigerians started to doubt whether Buhari was the real Buhari or the Jibrin of Sudan, the alleged clone, as Kanu had said after his return.

Garba Shehu stated in the book’s Chapter 10, “Rats, Spin and All That,” that the situation became a major worry for him when Bashir Ahmad, Buhari’s social media assistant, declared on his X account that the former president had returned but would be working from home.

Gara Shehu narrated, “So in the few hours of the president’s return, I picked up a conversation in the office of the CoS, where the chief, a few principal officers and the permanent secretary sat over lunch, a damage to a cable was noticed and it needed fixing.