How Villa’s rats invasion story was used to distract Nigerians from Buhari’s health issues – Garba Shehu

Garba Shehu, former media aide to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has revealed that the story about a rat invasion in the Presidential Villa in 2017 was a calculated distraction, crafted to steer public focus away from growing concerns about Buhari’s health.

The disclosure is detailed in Shehu’s newly launched memoir, According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience, which was unveiled Tuesday in Abuja.

According to Shehu, the now-infamous tale about rodents damaging the president’s office was a strategic piece of “spin” used to counter rising speculation over Buhari’s medical condition and capacity to lead the country.

The timing of the incident coincided with Buhari’s return to Nigeria on August 19, 2017, following a nearly three-month-long medical stay in the United Kingdom. Upon his return, the Presidency announced he would be operating from home rather than his office — a decision that intensified public doubt and fueled conspiracy theories.

At the height of the uncertainty, Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), had publicly claimed that Buhari had died abroad and was replaced by a body double from Sudan.

In Chapter 10 of his book, titled Rats, Spin and All That, Shehu recounts how the rat narrative came into play.

“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.”

Shehu explained that the story rapidly gained traction, even making headlines on BBC World News. The media frenzy intensified, with local and international journalists, including BBC Hausa, seeking more details.

“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.”

He further revealed that the narrative prompted questions from top officials, including the then Minister of Information and the Vice President.

“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.”