“I Fabricated Rats in the Villa Story to Distract Nigerians from Buhari’s Illness” – Garba Shehu

Garba Shehu, former spokesman to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has admitted that he concocted the now-infamous 2017 story about rats invading the Presidential Villa as a deliberate distraction from Buhari’s health issues.

In his newly released book According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience, Shehu explained that the story was a media strategy to shift attention from growing public concern over Buhari’s extended medical absence and his delayed return to full presidential duties.

In Chapter 10, titled Rats, Spin and All That, Shehu recalled how media inquiries surged after fellow presidential aide Bashir Ahmad announced Buhari had returned to the country and would be working from home. Under pressure for an explanation, Shehu told journalists that rats had damaged cables in the president’s office.

“With reporters wanting to know more, the number of calls increased, with some, including the BBC Hausa, interrogating me on the type of rats we had in the Villa that could eat wire cables,” Shehu wrote. “To get them 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 added that both then-Information Minister Lai Mohammed and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo later confronted him over the story. “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,” he wrote. Shehu noted that both officials disagreed, saying the strategy was misguided.