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On Thursday 29th of October, 2020, the leader of Nigeria's Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) separatist movement, Nnamdi Kanu appeared in a rare interview with popular journalist, Dele Momodu.
In the 1 hour plus session, tagged 'World Exclusive Interview' by the media mogul and watched by over 26, 000 people, Kanu, the self-exiled pro-Biafra group leader made different claims.
Kanu's IPOB is an outlawed group canvassing for the secession and sovereignty of Eastern Nigeria.
"Buhari is dead and buried in a shallow grave in Saudi Arabia," Kanu said vauntingly.
"Aisha Buhari (Nigeria's First Lady) was there, she came back from what they call the lesser hajj (referring to Umrah). She was wearing black, she was mourning.
"If you look at the pictures that were circulated at that point in time, you would see the forlorn faces of Northern governors.
"A minute silence was held at the AU for the late Buhari."
CHECKED: Although it is not the first time controversial Kanu will make this declaration, he has sold the narrative of President Buhari’s ostensible death and body-double narrative every time opportunity presents itself.
According to a 2018 opinion article published on Premium Times by Nonso Robert Attoh, a law lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, the first online record of the news of the purported one-minute silence observed by the AU for Nigerian president, Buhari was on January 30, 2017, by one of the sites involved in spreading the news of the president’s alleged death – naijanewsplus.com.
This writer discovered the website is not available online anymore.
A few other blogs have reproduced this same news since 2017.
Every session of the Assembly of the AU is properly documented in the form of press releases, and records of decisions and resolutions of the assembly, speeches made at the meetings, photos taken at the event, recorded videos, et cetera.
There is no document made available by the AU to the public to affirm that a quiet moment was observed for 'Late Buhari', as alleged by the IPOB leader.
At the minimum, when the AU Commission observed Minutes of Silence for late President, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, facts were out here in the public domain.
The unreliability in the IPOB leader’s assertion was further exposed when he said: "Aisha Buhari was there, she came back from what they call the lesser hajj. She was wearing black, she was mourning."
This is incorrect. President Buhari is from Katsina, his wife, Aisha hails from Adamawa State. Both are practicing Muslims - Sunni.
This writer spoke with at least two Northerners who have lived all their lives in that region of the country and both confirmed that in the West African country's Muslim-dominated north, followers of Islam do not consider black dress as a proper etiquette for attendance at funerals. They do not wear black to mourn.
One person however told this writer the only denomination of Islam that don black during occasions (not limited to funerals) are Shiites.
Meanwhile, neither Muhammadu Buhari nor his wife, Aisha is affiliated with Shia Islam.
'I Saw Buhari Live', Says Dele Momodu
Challenging Kanu's claim in the interview, Momodu, the Publisher of Ovation Magazine stated that he met physically with Buhari few months after rumours of his death started.
"I am very convinced that he is alive," Momodu said.
"I have been meeting Buhari since 2010.
"And the last time I met him was two years ago inside Aso Rock, with a former President of Africa.
"I met him. We interacted. He cracked jokes.
"He even said 'Dele, it seems you've added weight'.
"I am telling you that I am not foolish not to know the person I've been seeing for 10 years.
"I've worked closely with him on his campaign."
"I believe that a man like President Olusegun Obasanjo would not go and hold any meeting with a cloned President of Nigeria.
"If I can't vouch for any other person, I know that Obasanjo will never agree. he will talk."
VERDICT: No available credible data shows Buhari is dead. Therefore, that claim made again by Kanu is his 'world exclusive interview' with Momodu is bogus.
“Nigeria was not constructed by a Yoruba man, if it were I would have accepted it. Nigeria was not created by a Fulani man, if that was the case, who knows I might have accepted that. Nigeria was not created by an Hausa man either, Nigeria was created by a white man and named by a woman,” Kanu had said.
CHECKED: The modern Nigerian state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Frederick Lugard, a British colonial administrator.
Flora Shaw, Lady Lugard, wife of Frederick Lugard is credited with having coined the name "Nigeria".
The former name for Nigeria was the Royal Niger Company Territories.
In an essay that first appeared in The Times on 8 January 1897, by "Miss Shaw", she suggested the name "Nigeria" for the British Protectorate on the Niger River.
VERDICT: Correct.
"Even her Britannic majesty, Queen Elizabeth the second, also penned a condolence message to the people of Nigeria, before the cabals took over, and asked her to rescind it, which she did," Kanu claimed.
"Buhari is dead, and I'm prepared to stake Biafra on it.
"Jubril was there. Jubril followed Abba Kyari (former Chief of Staff to the President of Nigeria, now late) to Cuba and ran away from there and never came back.
"The man you have now in Aso Rock (Presidential Villa) is from Niger Republic.
"His name is Yusuf Abubakar Mohammed.
"Even Shekau (Abubakar, the current leader of terrorist organisation, Boko Haram) knows who he is - personally."
CHECKED: Like the AU-Buhari-one-minute silence claim, the suggestion of the Queen of the United Kingdom, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, writing a condolence letter to the Nigerian government over the demise of the president has been in cyberspace since 2017.
The ‘clone’ conspiracy theory
At the height of the anxiety about President Buhari’s health in 2017, there were speculations of Buhari's rumoured death, which was rife in the country.
Some believe Nnamdi Kanu and his outlawed IPOB group propounded the theory (even as in 2018, Buhari dismissed rumours that he is cloned).
By comparing Buhari’s pre- and post-medical leave physique, Kanu advanced that Buhari had died and had been replaced by a lookalike who he called “Jubril” from Sudan.
Although, very recently, Kanu is saying 'Jubril from Sudan' has fled, and another person named, Yusuf Abubakar Mohammed, is 'the doppelgänger from the Niger Republic'.
Kanu never provided any evidence to back up his claim. Just trumped-up stories.
VERDICT: Based on the above, the claim that Queen Elizabeth II wrote a condolence letter is baseless and fallacious.
"People were protesting SARS killings in the South. Fulani people in the North were busy having fun and laughing and smiling," Kanu said.
"And you want to be in the same country with them."
CHECKED: Kanu seems to be referring to most people of Northern Nigeria when he said "Fulani people in the north".
The list of 'Fulani states' includes different territories in the North such as Gombe, Sokoto, and Katsina.
Besides, one can meet these people in Bauchi as well as Kebbi.
Some live in Yobe, and it is possible to meet some Fulani people in Benue, my findings revealed.
This writer can confirm that #EndSARS protests, a demonstration against police brutality in Nigeria, happened in Kaduna, Taraba, and Kano. These are northern Nigerian states.
READ ALSO: Biafra: Watch As Fearless Nnamdi Kanu Calls Buhari Mad (Throwback Video)
VERDICT: Across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, #EndSARS protests occurred.
Even though it was extensive in places like Lagos, Edo, and Osun, youths in some Northern Nigerian states too joined in the protests.
Legal implication of 'Buhari doppelgänger', as claimed by IPOB's Nnamdi Kanu
Barrister Temitope Omotayo is a Legal Practitioner and a Governorship Candidate in Ekiti State in 2018. He says 'it could only be in the imagination of Kanu measuring up the President as that of a dead man on duty.'
"In law, a dead person is not a legal personality that could occupy a presidential seat in line with the Nigeria Constitution," Barr. Temitope told this writer.
"The position of President Buhari would have automatically become vacant if he is dead by the virtue of section 135(1b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic as amended.
"It could only be in the imagination of Kanu measuring up or comparing the capacity of the President as that of a dead man on duty."
Despite the unceasing claim by Biafra agitators most especially, that Muhammadu Buhari is dead and has been replaced by an impostor, Nurudeen Yusuf, a Lagos-based legal practitioner, and human rights activist, says "such unsubstantiated claims in the eye of the law is malicious".
"Section 39 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria guarantees freedom of expression as a fundamental right, for you to be able to air your opinion, air your view and give information. However, it is not permissible by the law that that freedom should be taken for granted to sell falsehood," he says.
"Such unsubstantiated claims in the eye of the law is malicious and is a deliberate attempt to give wrong information to the public.
"The government can tell him (Kanu) to come and prove what he has said, whether or not the president is among the living.
"Considering the fact that Nnamdi Kanu is not in Nigeria, he can only be brought in through the extradition process where Nigeria will need to collaborate with security agencies from other countries.
"So, his absurdity has been taken too far. And I think authorities should do something about it.
"If the president is indeed dead, the only proof of death is an authentic death certificate.
"And if he knows the hospital where such person passed on, he is supposed to, as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, write to that hospital to state that you want to know whether or not that person died there on such date.
"If he wants to substantiate his claims, he has the right to write to the appropriate quarters, for example, the Chief of Staff to ascertain the veracity of the president's existence."
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