Malam Garba Shehu, spokesperson to former President Muhammadu Buhari, says the abduction of over 200 pupils at the Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina, was the saddest incident he had to deal with as a presidential aide.
Shehu, who also worked as a spokesperson for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in 2003, revealed this during an interview with Trust TV.
Narrating how he was misinformed by the spokesperson of the Nigerian Army at the time following the abduction of school pupils in Kankara in December 2020, Shehu said when he called the spokesperson, whose name he didn't mention to confirm the incident, he was told him that less than ten pupils were kidnapped whereas, close to three hundred boys were missing.
"The entire global attention was on Nigeria, BBC World, everyone was calling. So where are you? What's happening? So you needed to get the facts before you speak, and for you to approach the person who should know and he picked his phone and said we are on the ground here. I'm with I'm Defence Minister, I'm with Army Chief and don't believe all these things they are telling me about 280, those they kidnapped were less than 10. That is what the man on the ground right said and I said this to the international broadcast systems," Shehu recalled.
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To ameliorate the situation, he said he had to apologise to the government of Katsina State and the victims' parents without consulting the Nigerian Army authorities.
"I issued a statement apologising to the government and people of the state and to the parents of all of the children."
Asked if there was any consequence for the army official, who misled him with wrong information, the former presidential aide replied, "I don't know whether there was."
Shehu added that a similar incident happened in Borno State, where about 52 farmers were shot and killed by Boko Haram, but "somebody was putting a spin on it, misleading me as presidential spokesperson."
