A former Commissioner of Information in Abia State, John Kalu, has detailed how he met with Muhammadu Buhari during which he confirmed that the then Nigerian president was not Jubril al-Sudani.

Mr Kalu, who was commissioner from 2015 to 2023 during the tenure of the immediate past governor of the state Okezie Ikpeazu, gave the details in a post on Facebook on Tuesday.

Mr Buhari, who served as Nigeria’s president from 2015 to 2023 under the APC platform, died in a London hospital on Sunday at the age of 82.

The former president was buried on Tuesday at his Daura residence in Katsina State, the county’s North-west.

In 2018, during Mr Buhari’s first term in office as president, speculation was rife that the then Nigerian leader died in 2017 and had been replaced by a lookalike called Jubril from Sudan, a country in North-east Africa.

Mr Buhari had spent months in a London hospital due to illness at the time.

The rumour was popularised by Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group seeking the secession of South-east and some parts of the South-south from Nigeria.

Mr Kanu, who is now facing terrorism trial since being first arrested and charged by the Buhari-led Nigerian government in 2015, had claimed that those close to the then president had sworn an oath of secrecy not disclose the alleged cloning.

But in his Facebook post, Mr Kalu, narrated how he met Mr Buhari in 2018 and confirmed that he was never cloned.

“Sometime in December 2018, I was part of Abia’s delegation to the signing of the Memorandum of understanding (MOU) for Enyimba Economic City with the federal government which culminated in the pledge to invest N20 billion in the project by the Buhari-led federal government.

“That was my 2nd opportunity to meet President Muhammed Buhari up close, having done so previously when he visited Aba in January 2015 to campaign at Etche Road Field with APC chieftains,” he recalled.

The former commissioner said although he never believed the speculation, the desire to verify the rumour preoccupied his mind when he visited Mr Buhari in 2018 at the presidential villa.

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“I must confess that the major thing on my mind when we visited Buhari’s Aso Rock in 2018 was to personally verify if he was the same General Buhari we celebrated as children in 1983 for ousting the ‘corrupt’ Shagari administration and introducing War Against Indiscipline (WAI) with his deputy Tunde Idiagbon or ‘Jubril al-Sudani’ as some of his adversaries wanted us to believe.

“For one, I knew the tall and handsome General Buhari of 1983 had a black mark (prayer mark) on his forehead that we were told in those days was because he was always touching his forehead to the ground or a prayer mat as a muslim. I also had a fair idea of his exact height, long chin, broad smiles and how he walks,” he stated.

Continuing, Mr Kalu said: “As a pure scientist, I firmly believe in observation and testing of facts, so I went and tested as expected.

“The Buhari I saw that day was the same General Muhammed Buhari that I saw in Aba in 2015 but I made two additional surprising observations: he was a very honest and jovial man with no airs.

“When we went for group photographs, after signing the MOU, as we were being arranged he was exchanging banters with Governor Okezie Ikpeazu and as a man on a mission I deliberately got very close.

“When Governor Ikpeazu introduced a popular lawyer to him and the lawyer reminded Buhari that they worked closely together from 2003 till 2015 President Buhari retorted ‘you were with me in 2003 I lost, in 2007 I lost, you were also with me in 2011 I lost and when you left me in 2015 I won.’ I couldn’t help chuckling but of course the lawyer must have left Aso Rock disappointed.”