Muhammadu Buhari

Muhammadu Buhari (born 17 December 1942) is a Nigerian politician who served as the president of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023.

Muhammadu Buhari was born to a Fulani family on 17 December 1942, in Daura, a town in Katsina State, Nigeria.

His father was called Mallam Hardo Adamu, a Fulani chieftain from Dumurkul in Mai'Adua, and his mother, whose name was Zulaihat, had Hausa and Kanuri ancestry.

He is the twenty-third-(23) child of his father and was named after ninth-century Persian Islamic scholar Muhammad al-Bukhari.

Buhari was raised by his mother; he was about four years old when his father died.

He attended primary school in Daura and Mai'adua, in 1953, Katsina Middle School, and attended Katsina Provincial Secondary School in Katsina State from 1956 to 1961 where he earned his West African School Certificate.

In 1962, at the age of 19, Buhari enrolled in the Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC).

From 1962 to 1963, Buhari underwent officer cadet training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot in England.

Buhari went to the Nigerian Military Training School, Kaduna in 1963.

In January 1963, at age 20, Buhari was commissioned a second lieutenant and appointed Platoon Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

From November 1963 to January 1964, Buhari attended the Platoon Commanders' Course at the Nigerian Military Training College, Kaduna.

In February 1964, the college was upgraded to an officer commissioning unit of the Nigerian Army and renamed the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) (prior to 1964, the Nigerian government sent cadets who had completed their NMTC preliminary training to mostly Commonwealth military academies for officer cadet training).

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 to 1967, Buhari served as commander of the Second Infantry Battalion and was appointed brigade major, Second Sector, First Infantry Division, April 1967 to July 1967.

Following the bloody 1966 Nigerian coup d'état, which resulted in the death of Premier Ahmadu Bello, Lieutenant Buhari, alongside several young officers from Northern Nigeria, took part in the July counter-coup which ousted General Aguiyi Ironsi, replacing him with General Yakubu Gowon.

Buhari was assigned to the 1st Division under the command of Lt. Col 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 then battalions, with Shuwa assisted by sector commanders Martin Adamu and Sule Apollo, who was later replaced by Theophilus Danjuma.

Buhari's initial assignment was as 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 within a week, with the intention of advancing through the flanks to Enugu, the rebel capital.

Buhari was briefly the 2 battalion's Commander and led the battalion to Afikpo to link 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 would later become battle fatigued and 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.

From 1970 to 1971, Buhari was Brigade Major/Commandant, Thirty-first 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, 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.

A retired Nigerian army major general, he served as the country's military head of state from 31 December 1983 to 27 August 1985, after taking power from the Shehu Shagari civilian government in a military coup d'état.

The term Buharism is used to describe the authoritarian policies of his military regime.

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 Ebele Jonathan.

This was the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost a general election.

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.