Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says he is not responsible for a viral quote describing President Muhammadu Buhari as a religious bigot and an agent of destabilization.
According to the content being shared across social media platforms, in 2003, Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos, described Buhari as “an agent of destabilization, ethnic bigot, and religious fanatic”.
“Muhammadu Buhari is an agent of destabilization, ethnic bigot, and religious fanatic who if given the chance would ensure the disintegration of the country. His ethnocentrism would jeopardize Nigeria’s national unity,” read the quote.
In 2003, Buhari contested the presidential election under the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) but lost to former President Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
At the time, Tinubu, who was seeking re-election as governor of Lagos, ran under the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD) and won.
In a statement on Friday, Tunde Rahman, Tinubu’s media adviser, said the quote is fictitious, describing it as “the handiwork of merchants of hate and fake news”.
He said the former governor never made such a statement about Buhari, appealing to the public to ignore it.
Rahman challenged those behind it to mention where Tinubu made the remark.
“This stuff has been going round and circulating as if it’s of a fact. It is not. It’s the handiwork of merchants of hate and fake news. Asiwaju Tinubu could not have said such of then GMB,” the statement read.
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