Former presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu has revealed that the 2017 story about rats invading President Muhammadu Buhari’s office at the Presidential Villa was a calculated fabrication intended to divert public attention from the president’s health issues.
The disclosure is contained in Shehu’s newly released memoir. In Chapter 10, titled “Rats, Spin and All That,” Shehu details how the narrative was crafted amid intense public scrutiny following Buhari’s return from a prolonged medical stay in the United Kingdom.
President Buhari arrived back in Nigeria on August 19, 2017, after months of medical treatment abroad. Amid mounting concern over his health, the presidency announced that Buhari would be working from home rather than his official office, sparking widespread speculation and conspiracy theories—including the infamous claim that a body double, “Jibrin from Sudan,” had replaced him.
Shehu wrote that, at the time, the administration faced growing pressure to explain why the president was not using his office. During a meeting in the Chief of Staff’s office, a conversation arose about a damaged cable, and someone jokingly suggested that rats might have been the cause, as the office had been unused for months.
“When the surge in calls for explanation of why the president would be working from home 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 recalled.
He admitted the statement was not based on any verified assessment but was intended to change the media narrative. The explanation was widely picked up by local and international outlets, including the BBC, and quickly went viral.
“To get them off my back,” Shehu wrote, “I referred them to the strange rats that invaded the country in the 1980s during the rice armada… Many critics disagreed with me, saying that we were covering up the president’s ill health. Some people had a good laugh… and an insignificant few believed me.”
He said the strategy was a deliberate communication tactic: “I wanted the discussion to shift—to move to any other issue besides the president’s health and his ability to continue in office.”
However, the move drew internal criticism. According to Shehu, then Minister of Information Lai Mohammed and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo both challenged the validity and wisdom of the story. “Both of them disagreed, saying that this was well off the mark,” he wrote.
In another chapter titled “The Muhammadu Buhari Persona,” Shehu addressed public perceptions of Buhari as detached from national affairs. He refuted those claims, insisting that the former president remained highly engaged and well-informed. According to Shehu, Buhari started his days reading multiple newspapers and stayed updated via radio and television briefings.
