According to President Muhammadu Buhari, the “Jubril of Sudan” joke was not funny.

Buhari made the remarks in a video titled “celebrating a patriot, a leader, an elder statesman,” which was shown on Friday night at a private dinner hosted by his family and close allies to commemorate his 80th birthday.

For most of 2018, it was widely believed that Buhari had died and that a man named Jubril, originally from Sudan, had been masquerading as the legitimate president of Nigeria.

The speculation began when the president returned to the country after a 103-day stay in the United Kingdom to address an unexplained illness.

In the documentary, Buhari claims that the rumor originated from pranksters who wanted to draw attention to themselves.

The president said he didn’t find it humorous and that it was just an attempt to deflect attention away from the real problems.

He went on to say that when they don’t understand something, some Nigerians would make up jokes about it.

“Yes! People said I am somebody from Sudan. I didn’t bother with the name. Nigerians have mischievous ways of explaining themselves,” Buhari replied to the interviewer when asked about the incident.

“No. It’s not funny because those who made those statement, they just want to be cheeky. They want to distract attention from the main issue.

“Our main issue is to do the infrastructure, make people aware that they need to work hard to live well. They just want to enjoy life without earning the respect of their community and so on.”

Commenting on the issue for the first time in 2018, Buhari said though some people hoped that he had died, he was “real” and “will still go strong”.

YNaija