₦airaland Forum

Garba Shehu, the former Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has admitted that the widely publicized story about rats invading the Presidential Villa in 2017 was a fabrication intended to divert public attention from concerns over Buhari’s health.

In his new book, According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience, which was launched on Tuesday in Abuja, Shehu revealed that the story was a deliberate “spin” to shift focus away from the mounting speculation about the president’s medical condition and ability to govern.

The incident followed Buhari’s return to Nigeria on August 19, 2017, after nearly three months of medical treatment in the United Kingdom.

At the time, the Presidency had announced that Buhari would be working from home rather than his office at the State House: a move that further stirred public skepticism.

The situation was already tense, as Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), had claimed that Buhari had died and was replaced by a Sudanese clone named Jibrin.

In Chapter 10 of his book, titled Rats, Spin and All That, Shehu recounted the events that led to the creation of the rat story.

“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,” he wrote.

“Someone speculated that rats may have caused that damage, given that the office was unused for a long time.

“When the surge in calls for explanation of why the president would be working from home, if truly he had recovered his health and fit for the office came, I said to the reporters that the office, which had been in disuse, needed renovation because rats may have eaten and damaged some cables.”

According to Shehu, the story quickly went viral, even making it into the BBC World News bulletin’s top five stories. He said the media frenzy intensified, with journalists, including BBC Hausa, pressing for more details about the rodents.

“To get them (journalists) off my back, I referred them to the strange rats that invaded the country in the 1980s during the rice armada that came here aboard ships bringing the commodity from Southeast Asia,” he wrote.

“As was known of them, in their destructiveness, those rats ate just anything anyone could imagine. Many critics disagreed with me, saying that we were covering up the president’s ill health. Some people had a good laugh over the narrative, and an insignificant few believed me.”

Shehu also recalled being questioned about the narrative by then Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

“At a later meeting, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo asked me why I had toed that line of story,” he wrote.

“I said to them that the choice I made was deliberate: I wanted the discussion to shift, to move to any other issue besides the president’s health and his ability to continue in office as the leader of the country. In my view, that spin succeeded. Both of them disagreed, saying that this was well off the mark.

agulion:
Those days when you counter their lies, yoruba Muslims will call you a wailers, election loosers and so many things

DeltaOil:
Who did not know ❓️
The sooner the South cuts away the North the better.

Softmirror:
And Nnamdi Kanu made up 'Buhari is dead' 'the president is a clone, from Sudan called Jibrin' story to also to expose how people can choose to be unreasonable. This unreasonable individual will make noise about this rat story on this thread without thinking about how they were played by Kanu too.

DiamondsAreFore:
Villa rats invasion story used to deflect Buhari’s Illness - Garba Shehu




https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/07/i-invented-rat-invasion-story-to-distract-from-buharis-health-issues-garba-shehu/

tit:
Give yourself a medal
You are a true Nigeria servant
To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done

SLIDEwaxie:
Nobody ate it though. Everyone knows it was a lie and it's so dumb it feels like it was told by a 6 yrs old

Softmirror:
And Nnamdi Kanu made up 'Buhari is dead' 'the president is a clone, from Sudan called Jibrin' story to play on the intelligent a people who choose to be unreasonable. This unreasonable individuals will make noise about this rat story on this thread without thinking about how they were played by Kanu too.

Softmirror:
And Nnamdi Kanu made up 'Buhari is dead' 'the president is a clone, from Sudan called Jibrin' story to play on the intelligent a people who choose to be unreasonable. This unreasonable individuals will make noise about this rat story on this thread without thinking about how they were played by Kanu too.

DeltaOil:
Who did not know ❓️
The sooner the South cuts away the North the better.