Lauretta Onochie, former Special Assistant (SA) to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has claimed that Nigeria’s incumbent President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, did not support Buhari’s emergence as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2014.

Buhari, a two-term president of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023, emerged the first presidential candidate of the APC in 2014 following its formation from a merger majorly by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2013.

Meanwhile, Tribune Online reports that Boss Mustapha, who served under Buhari as Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), on Wednesday, declared that the APC leveraged the popularity of Buhari to snatch power from the then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), contrary to insinuations that Tinubu made him President.

Mustapha said this at the public presentation of “According to The President: Lessons From A Presidential Spokesman Experience,” written by Garba Shehu, former presidential spokesperson to Muhammadu Buhari.

Mustapha, who admitted that the CPC controlled only one state while the APC was being formed, maintained that the votes that delivered victory for the APC came from the CPC and followers of Buhari.

He said, “The CPC had only one state then, but the important votes that gave us victory came from the CPC.

“We knew what we did to produce Buhari’s presidency.”

Reacting to the comment, Lauretta Onochie shared a front page of the Nigerian Tribune Newspaper with the headline: ‘Buhari’s popularity won 12.5 million votes for APC in 2014’, via her personal X account on Thursday, praising Boss Mustapha for ending what she described as a “lie” about Buhari’s emergence in 2014.

Supporting the headline attributed to Boss Mustapha, the former presidential adviser said Tinubu did not make Buhari Nigeria’s President, adding that “every lie has an expiry date.”

She said, “Every Lie Has An Expiry Date.

“Yesterday, The Lie That @officialABAT Made @MBuhari President, expired

“Thank you, Boss Mustapha, for puncturing the lies of those unsuccessfully trying to rewrite history

“Me: Tinubu DID NOT even support Buhari’s emergence as Candidate in 2014. Fact.” (Nigerian Tribune)