Amid rising speculations of a fallout between former President Muhammadu Buhari and his successor, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Buhari’s former spokesperson, Mallam Garba Shehu, has dismissed the rumours, calling them baseless.
The rumours of a strained relationship gained traction following reports that some supporters of Buhari had defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to join opposition forces in forming the African Democratic Congress (ADC), a new coalition party.
However, in a recent interview, Garba Shehu refuted claims of any animosity between the two leaders. He emphasized that Buhari harbours no ill feelings toward President Tinubu and remains supportive of the administration.
He said; “When people are entitled to hold their opinion, and your interpretation of it is purely your entitlement.”
“I don’t think in a formal and official sense, anybody would talk about distrust or mistrust or a façade between the Buhari administration and the Tinubu administration.”
“For Muhammadu Buhari, for him, he’s essentially an APC member.”
“He does not forget the fact that he ran one, two, three times and failed to get the presidency until they cobbled together the APC.”
“APC came together and gave him two terms, for which he has remained grateful, and says—and that’s what I’ve learned from him—‘I will never be ungrateful. I will never betray the party that gave me two terms in office.”
“We see statements; we read them when people say these things. Do we get disturbed? I don’t think that is the word.”
“It took a lot of doing, energy, and sacrifice for the APC to have been put in place, for the desperate opposition elements to come together.”
“They tried one, two, three times, and they failed. But by this time, they came together in 2014, formed a party, and ran in 2014. They won. Which means, in effect, that the people who were around, who saw how much sweat it took to build this coalition—I think they are not likely to be the ones who are trying to fracture it.”