It was not amusing when they called me Jibril from Sudan — Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has called the assertion that he was deceased and that his alleged body duplicate, “Jibril Aminu from Sudan,” was the one residing in the presidential house in Aso Rock, a pricy but amusing joke.

In a video that was aired on Friday night as part of a special dinner celebrating Buhari’s 80th birthday and themed “Celebrating a Patriot, a Leader, an elder statesman,” the president responded to the accusation.

The President claimed that some Nigerians are adept at making humour out of things they do not grasp or understand.

He said that the rumour was created by certain troublemakers to show off their cheek.

Asked by the interviewer if he heard about the crazy rumour a while back that he was not Buhari, he replied smiling, “Yes! People said I am somebody from Sudan. I didn’t bother with the name. Nigerians have mischievous ways of explaining themselves.”

Asked how he finds such things funny, the President said: “No. it’s not funny because those who made those statements, just want to be cheeky. They want to distract attention from the main issue.

“Our main issue is to do the infrastructure, make people aware that they need to work hard to live well. They just want to enjoy life without earning the respect of their community and so on.”

Buhari equally stated that he will not miss Aso Rock much because he is being harassed and that his efforts to make the country better is not good enough and appreciated by some people.

Buhari said: “I wonder if I am going to miss much. I think I’m being harassed. I believe I’m trying my best but still, my best is not good enough. Because there are people around that think that they can intimidate me to get what they want instead of going through certain systems to earn whatever they want to earn. And they are some people who want to be clever by half.”

President Buhari disclosed that he lost two of his children from his deceased wife to sickle cell anaemia. As a result, he demanded that his second wife have an AA genotype in order for his children to avoid inheriting the S from his AS genotype.

Yemi Osinbajo, vice president, proposed a toast for the honoree and praised him for being an honest, decent, and compassionate guy as well as a model leader.