Muhammadu
Buhari was born on December 17,1942, in Daura, Katsina State, to his
father Adamu and his mother, Zulaihat. He is the twenty-third child of
his father. Buhari was raised by his mother, after his father died when
he was about three or four-year-old.
In 1971,
Buhari married his first wife, Safinatu (née Yusuf) Buhari (First lady
of Nigeria December 1983-August 1985). They had five children together,
four girls and one boy. Their first daughter, Zulaihat is named after
Buhari’s mother. Their other children are Fatima, Musa (deceased),
Hadiza, and Safinatu.
In 1988,
Buhari and his first wife Safinatu were divorced. In December 1989,
Buhari married his second and current wife Aisha (née Halilu) Buhari.
They also have five children together, a boy and four girls. They are
Aisha, Halima, Yusuf, Zarah and Amina.
On January
14, 2006, Safinatu Buhari, the former first lady, died from
complications of diabetes. She was buried at Unguwar Rimi cemetery in
accordance with Islamic rites.
In
November 2012, Buhari’s first daughter, Zulaihat (née Buhari) Junaid
died from sickle cell anaemia, two days after having a baby at a
Hospital in Kaduna.
Buhari
joined the Nigerian Army in 1961, when he attended the Nigerian Military
Training College (in February 1964, it was renamed the Nigerian Defence
Academy, in Kaduna. From 1962-1963, he underwent Officer Cadets
training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot in England (Mons OCS
was officially closed down in 1972).
In January
1963, Buhari was commissioned a second lieutenant, and appointed
Platoon Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion in Abeokuta, Nigeria.
From November 1963- January 1964, Buhari attended the Platoon
Commanders’ Course at the Nigerian Military College, Kaduna. In 1964, he
facilitated his military training by attending the Mechanical Transport
Officer’s Course at the Army Mechanical Transport School in Borden,
United Kingdom.
From
1965-1967, Buhari served as Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion.
He was appointed Brigade Major, Second Sector, First Infantry Division,
April 1967 to July 1967.
Buhari was
made Brigade Major of the Third Infantry Brigade in July 1967 to
October 1968 and Brigade Major/Commandant, Thirty-first Infantry
Brigade, 1970-1971.
Buhari
served as the Assistant Adjutant-General, First Infantry Division
Headquarters, 1971-1972. He also attended the Defense Services Staff
College, Wellington, India, in 1973.
From
1974-1975 Buhari was appointed Acting Director, Transport and Supply,
Nigerian Army Corps of Supply and Transport Headquarters.
He was also made Military Secretary, Army Headquarters,1978-1979, and was a member of the Supreme Military Council, 1978-1979.
From 1979
-1980, at the rank of colonel, Buhari (class of 1980) attended the US
Army War College (established in 1901) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, United
States of America and gained a Masters Degree in Strategic Studies.
Upon completion of the on-campus full-time resident programme lasting 10
months and the two-year-long, distance learning program, the United
States Army War College (USAWC) college awards its graduate officers a
master’s degree in Strategic Studies.
Other roles include:
- General Officer Commanding, 4th Infantry Division, Aug. 1980 – Jan. 1981
- General Officer Commanding, 2nd Mechanized Infantry Division, Jan. 1981 – October 1981
- General Officer Commanding, 3rd Armed Division Nigerian Army, October 1981 – December 1983
In July
1966, Lieutenant Muhammadu Buhari was one of the participants in a coup
led by Lt-Col Murtala Muhammed that overthrew and assassinated Nigeria’s
first self-appointed military Head of State General Aguiyi Ironsi, who
assumed leadership of the Nigerian government after a failed coup
attempt on January 15, 1966, which overthrew the elected parliamentary
system of government of independent Nigeria (also known as First
Republic).
Ironsi’s
assumption of Nigeria’s leadership was technically another coup
following the January 15, 1966 coup. Other participants in the July 28,
1966 coup included 2nd Lieutenant Sani Abacha, Lieutenant Ibrahim
Babangida , Major Theophilus Danjuma, Lieutenant Ibrahim Bako among
others. The coup was a reaction to the January 15 coup where a group of
mostly Igbo, led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu overthrew the democratically
elected government of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
Many
Northern soldiers were aggrieved by the murder of senior politicians,
Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, northern regional premier, Ahmadu
Bello, and four senior officers, Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, Colonel
Kur Mohammed, Lt-Cols Abogo Largema and James Pam.[15] The counter-coup
was very bloody leading to the murder of mostly Igbo officers. Among the
casualties were the first military head of state General Aguiyi Ironsi
and Lt Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, the military governor of the Western
Region.
In August
1975, after General Murtala Mohammed took power that year, he appointed
Buhari as Governor of the North-Eastern State, to oversee social,
economic and political improvements in the state.
In
February 1976, the North Eastern state was divided by the then Military
Government into Bauchi, Borno and Gongola states. In August 1991, Yobe
state was created from Borno state, while Gongola state was split into
two states, Taraba and Adamawa. In October 1996, Gombe State was created
from Bauchi State.
In March
1976, the then Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Buhari
as the Federal Commissioner (position now called Minister) for
Petroleum and Natural Resources. When the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation was created in 1976, Buhari was also appointed as its
Chairman, a position he held until 1978. During his tenure as
Commissioner, 2.8 billion Naira allegedly went missing from the accounts
of the NNPC in Midlands Bank in the United Kingdom. Former President
Ibrahim Babangida allegedly accused Buhari of being responsible for his
fraud.
However,
according to the Modalities for Coordinating Nigeria’s Anti-Corruption
Strategies, Constructive Engagement Vol.1 No.1, (2009), in 1983, Shagari
administration inaugurated the Crude Oil Sales Tribunal of Inquiry,
headed by Justice Ayo Irikefe, to investigate allegations of N2.8
billion misappropriation from the NNPC account. The tribunal however
found no truth in the allegations even though it noticed some lapses in
the NNPC accounts.
In 1983,
when Chadian forces invaded Nigeria in the Borno State, Buhari used the
forces under his command to chase them out of the country, crossing into
Chadian territory in spite of an order given by then President Shehu
Shagari to withdraw. This 1983 Chadian military affair led to more than
100 victims and “prisoners of war”.
Major-General
Buhari was one of the leaders of the Nigerian Military Coup of December
31, 1983 that overthrew the democratically elected government of
President Shehu Shagari. At the time of the coup plot, Buhari was the
General Officer Commanding (GOC), Third Armored Division of Jos. With
the successful execution of the coup, General Tunde Idiagbon, Buhari was
appointed Chief of General Staff (the de facto No. 2 in the
administration). The coup ended Nigeria’s short-lived Second Republic, a
period of multiparty democracy started in 1979. According to the New
York Times, the officers who took power argued that “a flawed democracy
was worse than no democracy at all.” Buhari justified the military’s
seizure of power by castigating the civilian government as hopelessly
corrupt and promptly suspended Nigeria’s 1979 Constitution.
In order
to reform the economy, as Head of State, Buhari started to rebuild the
nation’s social-political and economic systems, along the realities of
Nigeria’s austere economic conditions. The rebuilding included removing
or cutting back the excesses in national expenditure, obliterating or
removing completely corruption from the nation’s social ethics, shifting
from mainly public sector employment to self-employment. Buhari also
encouraged import substitution industrialisation based to a great extent
on the use of local materials and he tightened importation.
Buhari
broke ties with the International Monetary Fund, when the fund asked the
government to devalue the naira by 60%. However, the reforms that
Buhari instigated on his own were as or more rigorous as those required
by the IMF.
On May 7, 1984, Buhari announced the country’s 1984 National Budget. The budget came with a series of complementary measures:
- A temporary ban on recruiting federal public sector workers
- Raising of interest rates
- Halting capital projects
- Prohibition of borrowing by state governments
- 15 percent cut from Shagari’s 1983 Budget
- Realignment of import duties
- Reducing the balance of payment deficit by cutting imports
- It also gave priority to the importation of raw materials and spare parts that were needed for agriculture and industry.
Other economic measures by Buhari took the form of counter trade, currency change, price reduction of goods and services.
Political Career:
In 2003, Buhari contested
the presidential election as the candidate of the All Nigeria People’s
Party. He was defeated by the People’s Democratic Party nominee,
President Olusẹgun Ọbasanjọ, by a margin of more than eleven million
votes.
On 18
December 2006, Gen. Buhari was nominated as the consensus candidate of
the All Nigeria People’s Party. His main challenger in the April 2007
polls was the ruling PDP candidate, Umaru Yar’Adua, who hailed from the
same home state of Katsina. In the election, Buhari officially took 18%
of the vote against 70% for Yar’Adua, but Buhari rejected these results.
After Yar’Adua took office, the ANPP agreed to join his government, but
Buhari denounced this agreement.
In March
2010, Buhari left the ANPP for the Congress for Progressive Change, a
party that he had helped to found. He said he had supported foundation
of the CPC “as a solution to the debilitating, ethical and ideological
conflicts in my former party the ANPP”.
Buhari was
the CPC Presidential candidate in the 16 April 2011 general election,
running against incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of thePeople’s
Democratic Party, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of Action Congress of Nigeria,
and Ibrahim Shekarau of ANPP. They were the major contenders among 20
contestants. He was running on an anti-corruption platform and pledged
to remove immunity protections from government officials. He also gave
support to enforcement of Sharia law in Nigeria’s northern states, which
had previously caused him political difficulties among Christian voters
in the country’s south.
The
elections were marred by widespread sectarian violence, which claimed
the lives of 800 people across the country, as hoodlums, who were
suspected to be Buhari’s supporters, attacked Christian settlements in
the country’s center regions. The three-day uprising was blamed in part
on Buhari’s inflammatory comments.
In spite
of assurances from Human Rights Watch, who had judged the elections as
“among the fairest in Nigeria’s history”, Buhari claimed that the poll
was flawed and warned that “If what happened in 2011 should again happen
in 2015, by the grace of God, the ‘dog and the baboon’ would all be
soaked in blood”.
However,
he remains a “folk hero” to some for his vocal opposition to corruption.
Buhari polled 12,214,853 votes, coming in second to the incumbent
president Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, who polled 22,495,187 votes and
was declared the winner.
In the run
up to the 2015 Presidential elections, the campaign team of Jonathan
asked for the disqualification of General Buhari from the race, claiming
that he is in breach of the Constitution.
According
to the fundamental document, in order to qualify for election to the
office of the President, an individual must be “educated up to at least
secondary school certificate level or its equivalent”. Buhari did not
submit any such evidence, claiming that he lost the original copies of
his diplomas when his house was raided following his overthrow from
power in 1985.
Buhari ran
in the 2015 Presidential election as a candidate of the All
Progressives Congress. His platform is built around his image as a
stunch anti-corruption fighter and his incorruptible and honest
reputation. However, Buhari stated in an interview that he will not
probe past corrupt leaders and that he would give officials, who stole
in the past amnesty, insofar as they repent.
In
February 2015, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo quit the
ruling PDP party and threw his support behind the Buhari/Osinbajo
ticket.
Muhammadu
Buhari is the new president-elect and winner of the March 28, 2015
presidential election, in accordance with the votes counted by Nigeria’s
Electoral agency, the Independent National Electoral Commission,
on Tuesday, March 31, 2015.
