A newsblog on X posted a video which claims that in 2018, Bishop David Oyedepo said ex-president Muhammadu Buhari had died and been replaced by a clone. The X user further mocked those who had asked for a retraction of their earlier post which alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari had died a long time ago and was replaced by a body double named Jubril from Sudan.
Oyedepo was dressed in his signature white suit in this 2 minutes, 20 seconds video. The video had the caption “#WATCH!!!!! A video from 2018 shows Bishop Oyedepo claiming that the real Buhari is gøne and has been replaced by a clone.🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – He mocked those asking him to retract his statement about President Muhammadu Buhari being dead and replaced by a body double named Jubril from Sudan 🇸🇩. What is your thoughts on this ???????? Authentic voice.”
VERIFICATION
To verify this claim, NV-A did a keyword search “Bishop David Oyedepo’s December 2, 2018 sermon.” The search results led to an 11-minute clip of Oyedepo’s sermon on YouTube. In this clip, the General Overseer spoke about the Buhari and Jubril clone claim, emphasising how disturbing the rumours were. Bishop Oyedepo said in his sermon, “Let our president address the nation right away to clear the air. This same call has been made by two one-time leaders of this nation, President Olusegun Obasanjo and General Abdulsalami Abubakar….but if the president will not address the nation on a subject as sensitive as this, it must have been proved beyond any iota of doubt that maybe he is not our president.”
In this sermon, the popular pastor further expressed concern about the possibility that Buhari may have died during UK treatment and was secretly replaced by a “double” named Jubril El-Sudan, who then allegedly struck a deal to share Nigerian oil revenues and swamp the nation into renewed colonisation.
During a trip to Poland in December 2018 for the UN Climate Change Conference, COP24, Buhari publicly dismissed the cloning rumours. According to the press release statement at the time, the ex-president was quoted saying, “It’s real me, I assure you. I will soon celebrate my 76th birthday and I will still go strong.” This was the first and only direct rebuttal from Buhari himself.
CONCLUSION
The claim that Bishop David Oyedepo said ex-president Muhammadu Buhari had died and been replaced by a clone is MISLEADING. Oyedepo did not categorically state that Buhari had been cloned, but rather questioned the lack of transparency and called on the president to address the nation.
