After a stint in military fatigues, General Muhammadu Buhari, who set out to return order and discipline to a rambunctious country despoiled by the political class, was prematurely overthrown by his comrade-in-arms. His return in civilian garb filled many with hopes of restoring lost values and returning the country to prosperity. Many believe that he was poor in the discharge of that mandate. Eno-Abasi Sunday and Leo Sobechi take a look at his life and times, and enumerate some of the issues that hallmarked his era
Ramrod. Stern. Stoic. Austere. Honest. Disciplined. Dictatorial. Reticent. Resilient. Unbending. Passionate. Confident. Moderate. Transparent. Simple. Taciturn and economical with smiles. If an epitaph like this were to be written about a Nigerian leader, most Nigerians, without second-guessing, would get the name General Muhammadu Leko Buhari right at first attempt.
That was how unmistakable Buhari’s persona was among past and present leaders of the country. From a very disadvantaged background, he rose to become a two-time leader of Nigeria.
Before exiting the stage at 82 on Sunday, July 13, 2025, in London, United Kingdom, Buhari had become so many things to so many people. But to his followers and those who appreciated what he stood for, he was an enigma, a legend, an idol, a leader, an exemplar, and a role model all rolled into one.
With him, there were seldom ambiguities or miscommunication. His body language was barely confused; character flaws were well registered, his likes and dislikes were crystal clear, just the same as his competences and incompetences.
Indeed, had Buhari not been handed another opportunity to lead the country for a second time between 2015 and 2023, many Nigerians would have gone to their graves imagining the El Dorado that Nigeria would have become if he had been handed the reins in civilian garb.
Among Nigerians, who yearned for Buhari’s return were millions who had become weary of the perennial misgovernance, thievery, and brazen disregard for the rule of law that the political class was dishing out with impunity.
Recalling his austere and almost lack of appetite for flamboyance, wastage, indiscipline, and vocal opposition to corruption and sundry inimical habits during his brief stint as head of state from 1983 to 1985, they reasoned that given his strength of character, and resilience, as well as the checks and balances in a democratic setting, the dictatorial tendencies inherent in him would be tamed, while the country would be ushered into a new era of prosperity, security and good governance.
Buhari’s die-hard followers and millions of others who were pissed off with the shenanigans of the political class were happy to lose an arm to have him in the saddle, and that they did in 2015, when his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) closed ranks with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). The result of that coalition was the historic ousting of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in 2015.
With Buhari’s return to the commanding heights after three failed attempts, many, indeed the world, expected him to end Nigeria’s drift to the precipice by translating his promises into concrete terms, ranging from ushering in economic prosperity to ending endemic corruption, poverty, and plugging leakages. Sadly, when it mattered most, he showed a lack of capacity and competence. He failed, having earlier admitted that old age would slow him down.
Buhari’s initial foray into leadership as a young firebrand officer presented him as a passionate Nigerian, whose puritanical instinct was to rescue the country from the brink, and ensure that it works no matter whose ox was gored.
Generally seen by his followers as the man who would reform Nigeria’s flawed electoral system—having been a serial victim of it—rescue the country from insurgents, and clean the Augean stable by ending an era of wealth without enterprise, Buhari, by the time he breathed his last, left many concluding that after two stints in leadership, Nigeria’s litany of problems had proved too complex for his competence.
Despite having a strong hatred for corruption, hedonism, and arbitrariness, those at variance with his disposition loathed him for allegedly being nepotistic, sadistic, clannish, vindictive, slow to action, insensitive to the plight of an average Nigerian, lacking emotional intelligence, and in possession of a strong penchant for humiliating his compatriots.
This can be gleaned from his deployment of soldiers to maintain law and order in society, as well as from subjecting civil servants who arrived late to work to various military-style exercises, all aimed at eradicating deep-seated indiscipline and unruly conduct. The War Against Indiscipline (WAI) campaign, which he later launched, took matters further by publicly disgracing Nigerians and enforcing necessary adjustments in public conduct.
Early life
Muhammadu Buhari, the 23rd child of Mallam Hardo Adamu Buhari, was named after the 9th-century Islamic scholar, Muhammad al-Bukhari. When his father died, Waziri Alhazan, the son of Emir Musa dan Nuhu, became the guardian of his mother and her six children, including Buhari.
His earliest form of education was at a Quranic school, after which he received his primary education in Daura and Mai’Adua, completing it in 1953. At Katsina Middle School, later renamed Katsina Provincial Secondary School, he received his secondary education from 1956 to 1961.
The following year, at the age of 19, Buhari was one of 70 boys selected for recruitment into the Nigerian Military Training School (NMTC). In February 1964, NMTC was upgraded to an officer commissioning unit of the Nigerian Army. It was later renamed the Nigerian Defence Academy. From 1962 to 1963, Buhari underwent officer cadet training at Mons Officer Cadet School, Aldershot, England. He also attended the Army Mechanical Transport School in Borden, Great Britain, and the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., in 1979, where he secured a Master’s degree in Strategic Studies.
In 1977, Buhari married Safinatu Yusuf, and the marriage produced five children – a son and four daughters. The son, Musa, and the daughter, Zulaihat, both died of sickle cell anaemia. Years after the marriage packed up in 1988, Safinatu died in 2006, and Buhari, in 1989, married Aisha Halilu, 29 years his junior. His marriage to Aisha, a trained public administrator, also produced five children – again, four daughters and a son.
Cleaning the Augean Stable
In 1983, Buhari, then a major general and General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Third Armoured Division, became one of the ring leaders of the coup that brought down the Second Republic. By the time the dust settled, Buhari was in the saddle, and Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon was appointed Chief of General Staff. Less than two years in office, the Buhari-led junta was overthrown by Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida in August 1985. After his overthrow, Buhari spent three years in detention in a small, guarded bungalow in Benin City, Edo State. Upon Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, Mr Buhari plunged into politics as an opposition candidate, losing a streak of elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011. He persevered until 2015 when he successfully turned the corner.
One of the first major moves of the new Buhari-led administration was to investigate the arms procurement deal, known as Dasukigate, under President Jonathan, which allegedly led to the embezzlement of $2 billion through the office of the then National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki. The illegal deal was revealed following an interim report of the presidential investigations committee on arms procurement under Jonathan.
The committee report revealed an extra-budgetary spending of N643.8 billion and an additional expenditure of approximately $2.2 billion in the foreign currency component during the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
On December 21, 2016, the Buhari-led government, to deepen probity and accountability in the polity, announced a whistle-blowing policy offering a 2.5%–5% reward for those who would take up the challenge. The initiative aimed to obtain relevant data or information regarding the violation of financial regulations, the mismanagement of public funds and assets, financial malpractice, fraud, and theft.
In May 2018, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) announced that 603 persons had been convicted on corruption charges since Buhari took office in 2015. The EFCC also announced that for the first time in Nigeria’s history, judges and top military officers, including retired service chiefs, were being prosecuted for corruption.
The successful prosecutions were also credited to Ibrahim Magu, who headed the anti-graft body under Buhari at that time. Magu himself was later arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) following damaging security reports about his activities, which bordered on financial irregularities. The series of corruption allegations eventually snowballed into his ouster from office.
Under Buhari, the Chief Justice of the Nigerian Court, Walter Onnoghen, was convicted by the Code of Conduct Tribunal on 18 April 2019, for false assets declaration.
Buhari’s drive to rid the country of corruption also saw the former Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, being extradited to Nigeria in December 2019 to stand trial on corruption charges.
However, despite these and other efforts, Transparency International still ranked Nigeria low in its corruption perception index in January 2020.
Economic legacies
On the economic front, Buhari was uninspiring as his years were marked by high debt, high inflation, and low growth, as testified to by the Budget Office, which admits that between 2016 and 2022, the Buhari government raised total revenues of N26.67 trillion and expended N60.64 trillion, leaving a deficit of N33.97 trillion.
The gaping hole was financed with the Federal Government’s domestic debt, which rose from N8.84 trillion as of December 2015 to N44.91 trillion as of June 2023, while external debt rose from $7.35 billion in December 2015 to $37.2 billion in June 2023. This excludes support provided by the Central Bank, amounting to N25 trillion. Ultimately, President Buhari moved Nigeria’s debt profile from N42 trillion to N77 trillion.
This has had attendant effects on debt servicing, which rose from N1.06 trillion in 2015 to N5.24 trillion as of 2022. In fact, under President Buhari’s administration, the debt-service-to-revenue ratio grew from 29 per cent to 96 per cent.
While all these played out, Nigeria’s social security milieu became worse than that of countries at war. Thrusting the country into two quick economic recessions was no accident, as all the signs gradually crystallised – uncontrolled inflation, an unmitigated rise in unemployment, a sharp rise in poverty, as well as a lack of sound economic policy.
For a significant part of the first two years of the Buhari government, it operated with a vague economic blueprint that did little to curb the litany of financial woes that ultimately seized the country by its jugular, forcing both the government and the governed to remain at sea for lengthy periods.
While poverty flourished in the Buhari autopilot economy, Nigeria successfully overthrew India as the poverty capital of the world, and its multi-dimensionally poor people grew to over 130 million, still under Buhari’s watch.
Before Buhari assumed office, the economy had sustained an unbroken 29-month run of single-digit inflation, which had once been a key target. Seven months into Buhari’s administration, the inflation rate rose beyond single digits, but many experts dismissed the emerging trend as transitory. It was not. Inflation under the Daura-born general accelerated at a breakneck pace. The infamous border closure of 2019 left millions of households struggling to feed themselves.
During the Buhari administration, the minimum wage grew by 67 per cent. In contrast, the general price level had increased by 220 per cent, or over threefold what it was in April 2015, implying that an individual whose money income had tripled was still slightly below his purchasing power eight years earlier.
The naira under Buhari was in tatters to the point of becoming more of an article of speculation and trade than it was a store of value. It also lost its long-standing N150/$ peg against the dollar before the election that ushered Buhari into power. The official rate was about N196/$, with the black market rates converging around the same rate or even trading slightly lower on some days.
Less than 20 years after the country exited the debt crisis following relief secured from the Paris Club, it slid back into the trap, largely due to the additional N34 trillion accumulated by the federal and state governments over the eight years of Buhari’s presidency. The extra debt, excluding the controversial and opaque budget support from the apex bank, increased the national sovereign debt by 282 per cent.
The All Progressives Congress administration led by Buhari would also be remembered for the depletion of the Excess Crude Account (ECA) savings. As at the end of April 2023, the outstanding balance in the account, according to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), was $475 million, which is 77 per cent lower than the $2.1 billion that ex-President Goodluck Jonathan left behind.
In all, poor capital project funding, expanded fiscal deficits, and bloated recurrent expenditure are some of the hallmarks of the administration. From 2015 to 2022, the Federal Government’s actual budgets totalled N69.6 trillion, with fiscal deficits totalling N29.4 trillion, according to figures obtained from the budget performance reports.
Of the total budgetary spending outlay over the eight years, only 20 per cent (N13.89 trillion) was allocated to capital expenditure (CAPEX), despite some ministries classifying consumables, such as computers, as CAPEX. The balance of N55.7 trillion was spent on overhead and other recurrent items.
A General who could not secure his people
Despite being a former army General, the level of insecurity under Buhari’s administration worsened, with virtually all parts of the country battling one form of violent crime or another. While all this was going on, he still claimed that things were under control.
Fittingly, the widespread insecurity was captured by The Global Terrorism Index (2019), which ranked Nigeria as the third-worst nation prone to terrorism, with no improvement since 2017.
During his two terms of eight years, 63,111 Nigerians were killed (approximately 21 deaths daily) arising from herder/farmer clashes, terrorism, banditry, extra-judicial killings, communal crises, cult clashes, among others. Within this period, many security operatives were used to intimidate journalists, harass, and assault human rights activists, protesters, and critics of the government.
All Buhari’s promises to crush Boko Haram insurgents also came to nought as the violent Islamist group Boko Haram still pulsates, and the remaining 82 of the abducted Chibok school girls and many others abducted by the religious bigots are still in captivity.
And defying Mr Buhari’s frequent assertions that the insurgents had been defeated, the fanatics maintained a steady campaign of suicide bombings and attacks.
According to Audu Bulama Bukarti, a human rights lawyer and public affairs analyst, in an interview, Buhari made significant progress in reclaiming swathes of council areas captured by the insurgents, dislodging them, dismantling their structures, and pushing them to the fringes of the Lake Chad Basin. But whatever gains that were recorded here paled into insignificance as bandits are proliferating massively in the North-East, and have killed 10,000, abducted 8,000, while separatists in the South-East are successfully bleeding the region of billions of naira in investment loss, and thousands of human lives wasted.
Among those who believe that Buhari meant well for the country, but was let down by his lieutenants, is former Nigerian Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Speaking in London following Buhari’s death, Abubakar said many officials who served under the late President Muhammadu Buhari failed to meet the standards he expected during his administration, despite his commitment to discipline and the fight against corruption.
“My relationship with General Buhari dates as far back as 1962,” he said. “We joined the military at the same time, and he was my senior. During the civil war, we served in the same sector.
“You could trust Buhari with anything on this earth, and he would not betray you…As a military ruler, he introduced the War Against Indiscipline to restore order. Nigerians were more respectful, and society was more orderly under that regime.
“Despite his quiet nature, he was strong in character and consistent in principle. We have lost a patriot who tried to make Nigeria better. His death is not just a loss to his family but to the entire nation.”
Also sharing some of Abubakar’s views about Buhari is the President of Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum, Akin Malaolu, who said: “Buhari was a leader who prided himself as being very honest. We give him credit for standing by his words to remain honest without desire for whetted materialistic appetite, but his cronies developed desires for illicit acquisitions.”
Malaolu was, however, quick to add that: “Insecurity became very active during his reign and most rural dwellers were from time to time visited with genocide by his rampaging tribe, Fulani herdsmen. He made no serious attempt to curtail their nefarious activities till he left power.”
12 million votes: Not just a funeral…
Right from the time the remains of the former President was billed to leave the United Kingdom, politicians, particularly those congregating in the name of Coalition of Political Groups, in Nigeria were working their phones. But President Tinubu, who has just returned from Rio de Janeiro, understood what the flipside of the impending burial ceremony entails: a prelude to the 2027 electoral contest was in the offing.
The President had marshalled his embattled deputy, Kashim Shettima, and his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to proceed to London and ferry the corpse back to the country.
As an incumbent, who is a veteran in the power game, the President had a mastery of how perception is everything in politics. He seemed to have read the scripts in the opposition playbook. And, true to his clever schemes, former Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, who is seen as the rallying point in the ongoing careening of opposition figures, had relocated to Katsina State. He was working his phones as he walked along the hotel lobby.
But, as el-Rufai was reaching out to his group, including former Transportation Minister, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, President Tinubu was schooling Katsina State governor, Dr Dikko Radda, on how to dominate the environment, by coordinating proceedings in readiness for his arrival on Tuesday, and ahead of the team from London.
President Tinubu’s decision to announce a state burial, full military involvement and a public holiday was a strategic move to diminish the plans by the opposition elements to gain maximum political mileage out of Buhari’s final departure. As it were, loyalists of the departed former President, especially those from the vote-rich North-West geopolitical zone, were also strategising on how to use the burial to wrong-foot and tar the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Tinubu.
Only those who looked deeper could see that the interest and mammoth crowd drawn to Daura, were ostensibly as a result of two contending parties to serve as next of kin to claim the late Buhari’s legendary 12 million plus votes.
Amaechi, who was honoured with the Dan Amana title by the Daura Emirate, saw an opportunity to claim the political IOU incidental to the siting of the Institute of Transportation in the area.
The former minister, who is also among those jostling to become the standard bearer of the ADC in the 2027 presidential poll, was among the first mourners to arrive, but his enthusiasm waned when he was informed by the former Kaduna State governor that “these people have blocked all loopholes.”
Having denied the opposition of any role play in the burial ceremony, President Tinubu, who maintained direct contact with Shetiima and Gbajabiamila, left Abuja by noon, only to arrive at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Airport exactly 50 minutes before the Presidential jet bearing Buhari’s remains touched the tarmac.
With the massive mobilisation engineered by Governor Radda, the Buharists who are inclined towards the opposition grouping could not come close. Everywhere was tight, not only by security personnel, but by political foot soldiers who were determined to ensure that Buhari’s 12million PVCs do not get into the wrong hands.
Sources in Katsina told The Guardian that, seeing the coordinated moves orchestrated by the President through Governor Radda, el-Rufai was holed up in his hotel room, until the cortege snaked out of Katsina through the Eid ground in Daura.
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, who was to be in the state on Monday, had to cancel his flight and made it to Katsina and Daura on Tuesday. His 2019 presidential running mate on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi, seeing the jostle for the 12 million votes, decided not to join any of the coalition members on their private jets.
Across Abuja, Kano and Katsina Airports, the Asiwaju political forces took up the challenge and mobilised in what was obviously a show of political force to douse the incipient rise of opposition against his administration in the North-West region.
The Guardian
