Muhammadu Buhari (Listenⓘ 17 December 1942 – 13 July 2025) was a Nigerian general and politician who ruled as military dictator of Nigeria from 1983 to 1985, and later served as the democratically elected civilian president of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023.
Buhari joined the Nigerian Army fighting in the Nigerian Civil War, before advancing in subsequent military governments. Buhari earned a taciturn reputation during the presidency of Shehu Shagari due to his leading troops in the Chadian–Nigerian War. Buhari was a main figure behind the 1983 Nigerian coup d'état which led to the overthrow of the Second Republic. Although not the ringleader, Buhari became head of the military junta amid a period of deep economic crisis and widespread corruption. Citing economic mismanagement and a lack of discipline under the civilian administration, Buhari adopted a strict and austere approach to governance, with a strong emphasis on discipline, anti-corruption, and economic recovery through what became known as the War Against Indiscipline (WAI). The authoritarian political system he created is known as Buharism. Ultimately, Buhari's rigid style of governance and strained economic measures led to growing dissatisfaction within the military. On 27 August 1985, he was overthrown in a palace coup led by General Ibrahim Babangida.
Buhari ran for president of Nigeria on the platform and support of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in 2003 and 2007, and on the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) platform in 2011. In December 2014, he emerged as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress party for the 2015 general election. Buhari won the election, defeating incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. It was the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost a re-election bid. He was sworn in on 29 May 2015. In February 2019, Buhari was re-elected, defeating his closest rival, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, by over 3 million votes.
Early life
Muhammadu Buhari was born on 17 December 1942, in Daura, now in Katsina State, Nigeria. He was the twenty-third child of Mallam Hardo Adamu, a Fula chieftain originally from Dumurkul in Mai'Adua and Zulaihat, who had Hausa and Kanuri ancestry. He was named after ninth-century Islamic scholar Muhammad al-Bukhari. Buhari's great-grandfather, Yusuf, was a chieftain, who had established several settlements in Daura, including Dumurkul. Buhari's father died when he was 4 years old, and Waziri Alhassan, the son of the Emir of Daura, Musa dan Nuhu (reigned: 1904–1911), became the guardian of Zulaihat and her six children, including Buhari.
Buhari attended Qur'anic school, where he helped in rearing cattle. He had his primary education in Daura and Mai'Adua, and graduated in 1953. He was admitted into Katsina Middle School (later renamed to Katsina Provincial Secondary School), where he had his secondary education from 1956 to 1961. During his sixth form, he served as the house captain and headboy of the school. In 1960, he was awarded scholarship by the Elder Dempster Lines for a summer visit to the United Kingdom.
Buhari wanted to pursue a medical degree to become a doctor; the only option at the time was to study Pharmacology at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology in Zaria, which would take him many years. His nephew Mamman Daura advised him to join the Nigerian military and pursue higher education there.
Military career
In 1962, at the age of 19, Buhari was one of 70 boys selected for recruitment into the Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC). In February 1964, NMTC was upgraded to an officer commissioning unit of the Nigerian Army and was renamed Nigerian Defence Academy. From 1962 to 1963, Buhari underwent officer cadet training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, England. In January 1963, at the age of 20, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and appointed Platoon Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion in Abeokuta, Nigeria, and attended the Platoon Commanders' Course at the Nigerian Military Training College, Kaduna, Kaduna State, from November 1963 to January 1964. In 1964, he further moved to the Mechanical Transport Officer's Course at the Army Mechanical Transport School in Borden, United Kingdom.
From 1965 to 1967, Buhari served as commander of the Second Infantry Battalion and was appointed brigade major of the Second Sector, First Infantry Division (April 1967 to July 1967). Following the 1966 Nigerian coup d'état that killed the Premier of Northern Nigeria Ahmadu Bello, Buhari, alongside other officers from Northern Nigeria, took part in the July counter-coup, which ousted General Aguiyi Ironsi, replacing him with General Yakubu Gowon.
Nigerian Civil War
Buhari was assigned to the 1st Division under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Shuwa. The division had temporarily moved from Kaduna to Makurdi at the onset of the Nigerian Civil War. The 1st division was divided into sectors and battalions, with Shuwa assisted by sector commanders Martin Adamu and Sule Apollo, who was later replaced by Theophilus Danjuma. He first served as the Adjutant and Company Commander 2 battalion unit, Second Sector Infantry of the 1st Division. The 2 battalion was one of the units that participated in the first actions of the war: they started from Gakem near Afikpo and moved towards Ogoja, with support from Gado Nasko's artillery squad. They reached and captured Ogoja, with the intention of advancing through the flanks to Enugu, the capital city. He was briefly the 2 battalion's Commander and led the battalion to Afikpo to merge with the 3rd Marine Commando and advance towards Enugu through Nkalagu and Abakaliki. However, before the move to Enugu, he was posted to Nsukka as Brigade Major of the 3rd Infantry Brigade under Joshua Gin, who was later replaced by Isa Bukar.
Buhari stayed with the infantry for a few months as the Nigerian army began to adjust tactics learnt from early battle experiences. Instead of swift advances, the new tactics involved securing and holding on to the lines of communications and using captured towns as training ground to train new recruits brought in from the army depots in Abeokuta and Zaria. In 1968, he was posted to the 4 Sector, also called the Awka sector, which was charged with taking over the capture of Onitsha from Division 2. The sector's operations were within the Awka-Abagana-Onitsha region, which was important to Biafran forces because it was a major source of food supply. It was in the sector that Buhari's group suffered a lot of casualties trying to protect the food supplies route of the rebels along Oji River and Abagana.
After the war
From 1970 to 1971, Buhari was Brigade Major/Commandant, 31st Infantry Brigade. He then served as the Assistant Adjutant-General, First Infantry Division Headquarters, from 1971 to 1972. He also attended the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington Cantonment, India, in 1973. From 1974 to 1975 Buhari was acting director of Transport and Supply at the Nigerian Army Corps of Supply and Transport Headquarters.
In the 1975 military coup d'état, Lieutenant Colonel Buhari was among a group of officers that brought General Murtala Mohammed to power. He was later appointed Governor of the North-Eastern State from 1 August 1975 to 3 February 1976, to oversee social, economic and political improvements in the state. On 3 February 1976, the North Eastern State was divided into three states Bauchi, Borno and Gongola. Buhari then became the first Governor of Borno State from 3 February 1976 to 15 March 1976.
In March 1976, following the botched 1976 military coup d'état attempt which led to the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed, his deputy General Olusegun Obasanjo became the military head of state and appointed Colonel Buhari as the Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources (now minister). In 1977, when the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was created, Buhari was appointed as its chairman, a position he held until 1978.
During his tenure as the Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources, the government invested in pipelines and petroleum storage infrastructures. The government built about 21 petroleum storage depots all over the country from Lagos to Maiduguri and from Calabar to Gusau; the administration constructed a pipeline network that connected Bonny terminal and the Port Harcourt refinery to the depots. Also, the administration signed the contract for the construction of a refinery in Kaduna and an oil pipeline that would connect the Escravos oil terminal to Warri Refinery and the proposed Kaduna refinery. During his tenure as Federal Commissioner of Petroleum and Natural Resources, US$2.8 billion allegedly went missing from the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Midlands Bank in the United Kingdom. General Ibrahim Babangida later allegedly accused Buhari of being responsible for this fraud. However, in the conclusion of the Crude Oil Sales Tribunal of Inquiry headed by Justice Ayo Irikefe to investigate allegations of 2.8 billion Dollars misappropriation from the NNPC account, the tribunal found no truth in the allegations even though it noticed some lapses in the NNPC accounts.
From 1978 to 1979, he was Military Secretary at the Army Headquarters and was a member of the Supreme Military Council from 1978 to 1979. From 1979 to 1980, at the rank of colonel, Buhari (class of 1980) attended the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in the United States, and gained a master's degree in Strategic Studies. Upon completion of the on-campus full-time resident program lasting ten months and the two-year-long, distance learning program, the United States Army War College (USAWC) awards its graduate officers a master's degree in Strategic Studies.
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 President Shagari to withdraw. This 1983 Chadian military affair led to more than 100 victims and "prisoners of war".
Divisional commands held in the Nigerian Army:
- General Officer Commanding, 4th Infantry Division: August 1980 – January 1981
- General Officer Commanding, 2nd Mechanised Infantry Division: January 1981 – October 1981
- General Officer Commanding, 3rd Armed Division: October 1981 – December 1983
Coup d'état of 1983
Major-General Buhari was one of the leaders of the military coup of December 1983 that overthrew the Second Nigerian Republic. At the time of the coup plot, Buhari was the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Third Armoured Division of Jos. With the successful execution of the coup, Tunde Idiagbon 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 multi-party democracy revived in 1979, after 13 years of military rule.
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 unsalvageably corrupt and promptly suspended the constitution. Another rationale for the coup was to correct economic decline in Nigeria. In the military's first broadcast after the coup, Sani Abacha linked 'an inept and corrupt leadership' with general economic decline. In Buhari's New Year's Day speech, he too mentioned the corrupt class of the Second Republic but also as the cause of a general decline in morality in society.
Head of state (1983–1985)
Consolidation of power
The structure of the new military leadership—the fifth in Nigeria since independence—resembled the last military regime, the Obasanjo/Yaradua administration. The new regime established a Supreme Military Council, a Federal Executive Council and a Council of States. The number of ministries was trimmed to 18, while the administration carried out a retrenchment exercise among the senior ranks of the civil service and police. It retired 17 permanent secretaries and some senior police and naval officers. In addition, the new military administration promulgated new laws to achieve its aim. These laws included the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Decree for the prosecution of armed robbery cases, and the State Security (Detention of Person) Decree, which gave powers to the military to detain individuals suspected of jeopardizing state security or causing economic adversity. Other decrees included the Civil Service Commission and Public Offenders Decree, which constituted the legal and administrative basis to conduct a purge in the civil service.