Former President Goodluck Jonathan has refuted reports alleging that he said the late former President Muhammadu Buhari was once nominated by the Boko Haram terrorist group to represent them in negotiations with the federal government.

In a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan said his comments at the public presentation of Scars, a book authored by former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, in Abuja on Friday, were “grossly misrepresented.”

“The attention of the Office of Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has been drawn to misleading reports circulating in sections of the media suggesting that Dr. Jonathan alleged that Boko Haram nominated the late President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, to represent them in dialogue with the Federal Government, and therefore this made him somehow complicit in the Boko Haram crisis,” the statement read.

Eze clarified that Jonathan never suggested or implied that Buhari had any link to Boko Haram or supported the group in any way.

“Dr. Jonathan’s remarks, made in the course of a broader discussion on Nigeria’s security challenges, were meant to illustrate the deviousness and manipulative strategies employed by Boko Haram in their early years,” he explained.

He added that the former president was merely referring to a well-documented episode in which different self-acclaimed factions and individuals falsely claimed to represent Boko Haram and named prominent Nigerians as supposed mediators all without their consent or knowledge.