Fatima Buhari, the daughter of late President Muhammadu Buhari, has alleged that her father’s signature was forged on official documents during his time in office.
She made the claims in ‘From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari’, a biography written by Charles Omole.
Fatima, a forensic auditor, said she examined several documents and presented her father with examples bearing what she identified as fake signatures attributed to him.
According to the book, she stated that similar concerns about forged presidential signatures were raised by others within the system.
She, however, maintained that such practices were not exclusive to the Buhari administration, noting that earlier governments had encountered comparable issues.
The author further quoted Fatima as saying there were instances where her father’s approved speeches and directives were altered before delivery or release.
“During a trip to the United States, the president spoke at a small conference. Fatima sat in the hall, watching him read. ‘You were stopping,’ she told him later. ‘It’s unlike you.’ He responded quietly: the text in his hands was not the speech he had approved. Someone had altered it. It was not a rare occurrence, he said. That day, he put the script aside and spoke in his own words,” the book reads.
“This was the kind of misrepresentation the family came to recognise: directives diluted in transit, statements rephrased to suit other agendas, the subtle deformation of intent as paper moved from desk to desk. It was not always sabotage; sometimes, it was the slip of a large bureaucracy.
“However, sometimes it was the work of a clique.”
The biography also revealed that the late president believed his official residence at the State House was being monitored and that he sometimes avoided speaking openly.
“A daughter and her father sit quietly together. He makes a small gesture, touching his cheek as if he has a toothache, and signals that they shouldn’t speak aloud. He believes ‘they’ have a listening device planted (‘like a chip’) in his office at the Villa,” the book said.
“Instead, they write messages to each other on paper, like spies in a film. He warns her to be cautious; he says he is, too. This isn’t melodrama but a way for the family to cope, having learned to mistrust the walls around them.”
The author added that some security chiefs who served under Buhari confirmed that unusual objects were discovered in the president’s office and bedroom during routine security sweeps.