There is one thing about destiny: it is a phenomenon shrouded in the innocence of birth, unfurling intricately throughout a life cycle. On Thursday, December 17, 1942, one was hatched in the heart of Daura, Katsina State, by Malam Hardo Adamu, a Fulani chieftain and his wife, Zulaihat. Named Muhammadu Buhari after the ninth-century Islamic scholar, Muhammad al-Bukhari, he steadily walked his long, eventful path from the sleepy corners of Qur’anic school in the Katsina village to the glamour of Nigeria’s highest office, first as a military head of state in Lagos and later, a civilian president at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja. He passed on yesterday in a London clinic at 82.
Buhari’s spokesperson, Mallam Garba Shehu, confirmed his death on Sunday afternoon.
Shehu’s statement read, “The family of the former president has announced the passing on of the former president, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, this afternoon in a clinic in London.
“May Allah accept him in Aljannatul Firdaus.”
Thereafter, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said Buhari passed away at about 4:30 p.m. in a London clinic.
In honour of the late leader, President Tinubu directed that the national flag be flown at half-staff across the country as a mark of respect.
President Tinubu, who had spoken with the former First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari, extended his condolences to the bereaved family, the people of Katsina State and the nation at large.
In a solemn act of state honour, President Tinubu has also dispatched Vice President Kashim Shettima to the United Kingdom to accompany the body of the former president back to Nigeria.
Growing up
After his primary education in 1953, Buhari proceeded with his secondary education at Katsina Middle School, later renamed Katsina Provincial Secondary School, and finished in 1961. At 19, in 1962, he joined the military and underwent officer cadet training at Mons Officer Cadet School in England and was commissioned a second lieutenant the following year.
Buhari later attended the Platoon Commanders’ Course at the Nigerian Military Training College in Kaduna before he travelled to the United Kingdom for the Mechanical Transport Officer’s Course at the Army Mechanical Transport School. Upon his return to Nigeria, he served as commander of the Second Infantry Battalion from 1965 to 1967, and was later appointed brigade major of the Second Sector.
Road to becoming military president
Buhari began to walk his way into the limelight through his participation in the July 1966 counter-coup which ousted General Aguiyi Ironsi and replaced him with General Yakubu Gowon. As a Lieutenant Colonel, Buhari was among a group of officers that brought General Murtala Muhammed to power through the 1975 military coup d’état. He consequently became Governor of the North-Eastern State from August 1975 to February 1976, when he was appointed the first Governor of Borno State upon division of the region into Bauchi, Borno and Gongola states.
Under General Olusegun Obasanjo, who succeeded General Murtala Muhammed as the military head of state, Buhari held sway as Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources and later became chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation until 1978. Under his watch, the government built about 21 petroleum storage depots across the country from Lagos to Maiduguri and from Calabar to Gusau and constructed a pipeline network that connected the Bonny terminal and the Port Harcourt refinery to the depots.
He held various high positions in the military until his big break came during the December 1983 Coup d’état. Major-General Buhari was one of the leaders of the military coup that overthrew Nigeria’s short-lived Second Republic.
As a military leader who justified the coup that brought him to power on endemic corruption in the civilian government, Buhari was renowned for his War Against Indiscipline (WAI) which addressed the perceived lack of public morality and civic responsibility in the country.
Notably, Buhari enacted decrees that empowered the federal military government to freeze bank accounts of persons suspected to have committed fraud and permit the government to probe the assets of public officials linked with corruption. He also constituted a military tribunal to try such persons. In August 1985, he was overthrown in a coup led by Major General Ibrahim Babangida and other members of the ruling Supreme Military Council and was detained until 1988.
Under the regime of General Sani Abacha, Buhari served as the Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) funded from the revenue generated by the increase in price of petroleum products, and executed developmental projects around the country. A 1998 report in New African praised the PTF under Buhari for its transparency, calling it a rare “success story”.
Buhari’s comeback to power
After several years of a somewhat quiet life in Kaduna as a retired General, Buhari re-launched himself to the public, this time as a politician. He contested presidential elections on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in 2003 and 2007 and under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011.
After losing on three occasions, Buhari led a coalition that formed the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2014 and emerged as the party’s presidential candidate. He won the 2015 presidential election, defeating incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.
Buhari’s anti-corruption posture earned him popular support among voters, and hopes were high that he would redeem a country enmeshed in widespread corruption and set it on the right path.
In his asset declaration form, he revealed that he had US$150,000 cash, five homes and two mud houses as well as farms, an orchard and a ranch of 270 head of cattle, 25 sheep, five horses and a variety of birds. He also said he had shares in three firms, two undeveloped plots of land and two cars bought from his savings.
In the build-up to the 2015 general elections, controversy around his educational qualification nearly marred his chance as the opposition asked that he should be disqualified from the poll, citing Section 87 of the Constitution which requires that in order to qualify for election to the office of the president, a person must be “educated up to at least School certificate level or its equivalent.”
Buhari did not submit his certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as required, saying they were in possession of the military. But the affidavit where Buhari said: “All my academic qualifications (documents) as filled in my presidential form, President APC/001/2015, are currently with the Secretary Military Boards as at the time of this affidavit” was accepted by INEC. As a result of the massive support he had, many Nigerians jocularly said they would still vote for Buhari even if he had no certificate or present NEPA bill.
Close shave with death
In July 2014, Buhari escaped a bomb blast by Boko Haram in Kaduna, where 82 people were reportedly killed. In his documentary titled ‘Essential Muhammadu Buhari’, the president said a vehicle that Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso gave him helped him survive the bomb blast.
“I think Kwankwaso was being generous. He gave me an armoured Land Rover vehicle. He said I should use it because he believed the competition I was going for involved people who would like to eliminate me.
“I was going to Kano from Kaduna in that jeep and a vehicle wanted to overtake us, but my escort stopped them, and they detonated the bomb. When I looked, I saw pieces of human beings. None of us in the vehicle was injured. But somehow I saw blood on me because of the number of people killed outside by the bomb,” Buhari said.
Life after office and death
Upon completion of his second term in May 2023, Buhari returned to his hometown in Daura and later relocated to his private residence in Kaduna where he was receiving political associates.
Buhari was much aware of his shortcomings as a human and apologised even well ahead of his death in a remark during the end of his administration in 2023.
“Whoever thought that there has been some form of injustice on him we are all humans, there is no doubt I hurt some people, and I wish they would pardon me and those that think I have hurt them so much, please pardon me,” he had declared. (Daily Trust)
