Lai Mohammed, minister of information, says the opposition is disappointed that President Muhammadu Buhari refused to die after his illness.
Mohammed said this in Kaduna when he visited Nasir el-Rufai, governor of the state, on Thursday.
In 2017, Buhari spent 150 days in the UK treating an undisclosed ailment. There were rumours that he had died.
He said critics of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government have resorted to fake news because they do not have achievements to speak on.
“Fake news has been on the rise because the opposition cannot debate on our governments whether at state or federal level on any issue. We challenge the opposition on the achievements it made either in agriculture, security, in the economy or fighting corruption,” Mohammed said.
“Rather they have found out that the most potent weapon is fake news. They claim that the president that we are seeing today has been cloned and it is one Jibril from Sudan. Why are doing this? They are disappointed that the president refused to die after his illness.
“Just some days ago they reported me as saying that Mr President does not know the way to his office because he has lost his memory and nobody ever bothered to ask ‘when did I say this, where did I say this.’
“We have it on good authority that the opposition consultants from various parts of the world and whose only duty is to churn out fake news.”