Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, has described as ridiculous, rumour that President Muhammadu Buhari had died and was cloned by somebody else from Sudan.
Obasanjo said the rumour became popular through the abuse of the social media, expressing surprises that many Nigerians believed the lies.
The former President explained in a video, how he was approached by a very important person, who asked him about the truth about Buhari’s rumoured death.
According to him, the person told him that the information had gone viral on the social media.
The former President and Head of State wondered how Buhari could have died and be replaced with someone from Sudan without him knowing about it.
“Somebody came to me, a very high hub person, saying tell me about this talk of Buhari not being Buhari.
“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. But you have it in the social media and you see people believing it,” Obasanjo expressed concern.
While accepting the fact that the social media is good, Obasanjo, however, regretted that it is being abused.
He advocated teaching the youths and the children about the dangers inherent in abusing the social media.
“Social media is good, but it can be abused. We have to train our youths and our children about the dangers of the social media,” he submitted.
Obasanjo has been one of past leaders critical of Buhari’s unpopular policies and inactions, particularly on the surging challenges of insecurity and bad economy.
As far back as October 2019, the former President expressed worries on the growing herdsmen-farmers’ crisis and asked Buhari to wade into the growing unrest.
In an interview Obasanjo granted to the Wilson Centre Africa Programme, he had said, “When you have a situation where your own tribe is being accused of something, you must be able to look into it and make it transparently clear that the accusation is unfounded or if it is founded, you deal with it.
“There have been herdsmen and farmers’ clashes. Now, herdsmen are mainly Fulani. Nothing had been done. Rather than doing something about it, what we are having is that we will create colonies – cattle colonies.
“Where will you create colonies in Nigeria? Is it in my own part of the country that you will now make a colony? Who will give you land to create a colony within his state? So, these are specifics and I can go on and on.
“There are many things that should have been done and that are not being done and there are many things that should not have been done but that are being done; that would have helped in the area of management.”