*Buhari debunks speculations that he’s a clone
*Regrets that some people had wished him dead
*Says it’s real me, I’ll celebrate my 78th birthday soon
*It’s ridiculous to think Buhari has been cloned – Boroffice
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday in Poland debunked reports that he has been cloned.
The social media has been agog in the past one year that President Buhari is dead and is being imitated by a man called “Jubril” “from Sudan”.
The Personal Assistant to the President on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, said in a Twitter post that Buhari made the clarification while addressing Nigerians in Poland.
He regretted that some people had wished him dead when he was sick for many months.
The tweet read, “A lot of people hoped that I died during my ill health. It is real me… I will soon celebrate my 76th birthday and I will still go strong —President @MBuhari this evening in Kraków, Poland. His response to a question of him being cloned.”
The report that President Buhari is dead and is being imitated by a man called “Jubril” “from Sudan” was ignited by the leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu in a video that went viral in September 2017.
The earliest mention of the claim of an impostor was in a Twitter post by user @sam ezeh on September 3rd, 2017.
A video outlining the claim has since been shared more than 5,000 times on Facebook and Twitter.
In it, Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), tells his followers that Buhari had died.
“The man you are looking at on the television is not Buhari… His name is Jubril, he’s from Sudan. After extensive surgery they brought him back,” he says. Kanu has separately referred to the supposed look alike as “Jubril Al-Sudani”.
Others have called him “Jibrin”.
The rumour has been fuelled by the real-life death of a Nigerian diplomat in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum in May 2018.
There have been allegations that the diplomat was deliberately killed due to his involvement in the supposed cover-up about Buhari.
Several high-profile public figures in Nigeria, including a former government minister and a Jonathan ex-aide have claimed President Muhammadu Buhari is dead and is being imitated by a man called “Jubril” “from Sudan”.
Reno Omokri, a former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan and Femi Fani Kayode, a former government special advisor and minister under President Olusegun Obasanjo, have both repeated the claims.
Several videos repeating the claims have been viewed on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube more than 500,000 times.
Senator Ajayi Boroffice, a professor of genetics, has also dismissed the possibility of cloning a 75-year–old man such as Buhari.
According to him, it is “ridiculous for anybody to think Mr. President has been cloned and that the person who is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a clone from Sudan.”
