Jonathan Denies Linking Buhari To Boko Haram

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has rejected reports claiming that helium accused the precocious President Muhammadu Buhari of having links with Boko Haram, insisting that his words were misinterpreted.

In a connection issued yesterday successful Abuja by his media adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan stressed that astatine nary constituent did helium suggest oregon connote that Buhari supported oregon had immoderate signifier of narration with the extremist group.

The clarification comes aft Jonathan, astatine the nationalist presumption of ‘Scars,’ a publication authored by erstwhile Chief of Defence Staff, Lucky Irabor, recalled that Boko Haram erstwhile mentioned Buhari arsenic a imaginable negotiator during bid talks with the national government.

Jonathan, who was successful bureau from 2010 to 2015, said the radical made the proposition aft his medication had acceptable up committees to research dialog with the insurgents.
But Garba Shehu, who served arsenic Buhari’s spokesman, dismissed the assertion arsenic “false and politically motivated.”

Eze explained that Jonathan’s remarks were being taken retired of context, stressing that they were meant to item Boko Haram’s deceitful tactics successful its aboriginal days.

“The attraction of the Office of Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has been drawn to misleading reports circulating successful sections of the media suggesting that Dr Jonathan alleged that Boko Haram nominated the precocious President Muhammadu Buhari, to correspond them successful dialog with the Federal Government, and truthful this made him someway complicit successful the Boko Haram crisis,” the connection reads.

“We privation to marque it abundantly wide that the erstwhile President’s comments were grossly misrepresented. At nary clip did Dr Jonathan suggest, imply, oregon insinuate that President Buhari had immoderate transportation with Boko Haram oregon that helium supported the radical successful immoderate form.

“Dr Jonathan’s remarks, made successful the people of a broader treatment connected Nigeria’s information challenges, were meant to exemplify the deviousness and manipulative strategies employed by Boko Haram successful their aboriginal years.

“His notation was to a well-documented occurrence erstwhile assorted individuals and factions falsely claimed to correspond the violent radical and purported to sanction salient Nigerians arsenic imaginable mediators, without those individuals’ cognition oregon consent.
“The constituent Dr Jonathan sought to marque was that Boko Haram, successful its diagnostic deceit, often invoked the names of respected nationalist figures to sow confusion, exploit governmental divisions, and undermine nationalist assurance successful government.

“His comments were truthful an illustration of the group’s duplicity, not an accusation against the precocious erstwhile president oregon immoderate individual, for that matter.

“The erstwhile president’s presumption was that if so Buhari was their prime negotiator, wherefore didn’t Boko Haram expeditiously bring their evil violent docket to an extremity erstwhile the retired General became president?

“For the avoidance of doubt, Dr Jonathan recognises that President Muhammadu Buhari, similar each patriotic Nigerian, stood firmly against coercion and was himself a people of Boko Haram violence. Both men, during their respective tenures, shared a communal committedness to restoring bid and stableness to Nigeria.”

Eze urged Nigerians to disregard the misinterpretations, noting that Jonathan remains dedicated to nationalist unity, bid and antiauthoritarian growth.