Former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who led the most populous country in Africa in 2015-23 years, was the first Nigerian leader to expel the current Nigerian leader through a ballot box, died in London on Sunday, a presidential spokesman said.
“President Buhari died in London at 4:30 pm this afternoon,” a spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu said in an article on social media platform X.
Buhari, 82, first led the country as military ruler after the coup in the 1980s, earning a loyal following of his brand of anti-corruption conviction politics.
He called himself a “converted Democrat” and replaced his military uniform with Jewish and prayer hats.
“I belong to everyone, I belong to anyone,” Buhari has always told supporters and critics.
Buhari beat Goodluck Jonathan, who served as president in 2010-15 and is considered the fairest election in Nigeria to date. Many hope that the retired few will strike armed groups like the country’s military head of state.
Instead, most of it is limited to the violence spreading in the Northeast. Nigeria has left a piece of Nigeria outside of its stretched security forces control, as gunmen in the northwest, armed separatists and gangs in the southeast roam unrestricted.
Most of Buhari’s appeals are in the spirit of anti-corruption, the central plank of his agenda as a military and civilian ruler. He said that local corruption in Nigerian political culture has brought people back.
But Buhari was quickly disappointed after winning in 2015.
It took him six months to name his cabinet. During this period, the oil-dependent economy attracted people’s opinions due to the low price of crude oil, prompting people to call him “Dad slow”.
Although his initial tenure was swept by Nigeria’s first recession, his second victory in 2019 was a radical attack, attack on oil fields and repeated hospitalizations.
Buhari was born on December 17, 1942 in Daura, northwest state of Katsina, and enlisted at the age of 19. He will eventually be promoted to major general.
He seized power in 1983 as a military ruler, promising to revitalize an unethical country. Buhari has struggled to take a difficult route in terms of the conditions sought by the IMF to the unfamiliar conditions of the bus lineup.
In 1984, his government tried to kidnap former ministers and voice critics living in Britain. The plot failed when London Airport officials opened the crate containing the kidnapped politicians.
Buhari’s first power tenure was brief. Another officer, Ibrahim Babangida, was removed from office in just 18 months.
Over the next 30 years, he spent most of his time in marginal parties and tried to run for president until he eventually defeated Jonathan in 2015.
