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Muhammadu Buhari, who was president of Nigeria for eight years after first serving as a military head of state, has died aged 82.
Buhari, who served two terms as Nigeria’s president from 2015 to 2023, died in London on Sunday afternoon following a “prolonged illness”, according to a spokesperson for his successor, President Bola Tinubu.
Buhari’s death marks the end of a public career that involved stints in the military as well as in democratic politics.
He rose to the rank of general before seizing power in a 1983 coup, one of a string of army officers who disrupted Nigeria’s nascent democracy after independence from Britain in 1960. Buhari himself was deposed in 1985 by another general just 20 months after his junta had seized power.
Buhari then sought to lead Nigeria through the ballot box after Africa’s most populous nation returned to democracy in 1999. He was a presidential candidate in 2003, 2007 and 2011, losing each time to rivals in the incumbent People’s Democratic Party.
Buhari was accused of inciting violence in the aftermath of his 2011 defeat when hundreds of people were killed in sectarian attacks. A post-election panel report determined that Buhari’s pre-election comments might have contributed to his supporters’ violence. Buhari always denied the accusations.
Having reinvented himself as a “reformed democrat”, Buhari finally won the coveted presidency in 2015 after forming an alliance with Tinubu to create the All Progressives Congress coalition to take on the PDP.
The alliance allowed him to broaden his appeal beyond his large power base in the northern provinces to southern Nigeria.
Buhari defeated the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, after running on an anti-corruption platform and a pledge to defeat the Islamist terror group Boko Haram which had gained worldwide attention for the kidnapping of 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls in the country’s north-east the previous year.
The stunning victory marked the first time an opposition leader had defeated an incumbent in the country’s history. Buhari was re-elected in 2019.
A strict Muslim known for his ascetic lifestyle and disciplinarian outlook that marked his tenure as military leader, Buhari started his term as a democratic president slowly. He took six months to appoint his first cabinet, earning him the moniker “Baba-Go-Slow” in reference to the country’s traffic problems.
Buhari was not helped by a fall in crude oil prices. Growth collapsed and living standards cratered during his time in office, with two recessions during his eight years in office.
He returned to some of the autarkic economic policies favoured by himself and other generals in the 1980s, such as closing land borders with neighbouring countries in a bid to curb smuggling.
Despite some early successes against Boko Haram, Buhari oversaw a period of increasing insecurity.
Violence spread from the Islamist group’s north-east stronghold to nearly every corner of the country, with multiple groups engaging in activities such as kidnapping for ransom and attacks on farmers as well as a separatist insurgency in the south-east.
The authoritarian streak of Buhari’s military days reared its head when he banned X in 2021.
His government was also accused of a clampdown on civil rights. Human rights groups said at least 10 people were killed by security forces who shot at protesters during anti-police brutality protests in Lagos in October 2020.
With Buhari having lengthy spells away in London receiving treatment for undisclosed ailments, his time in office was often marked by rumours about ill-health. In 2018, Buhari was even forced to deny speculation he had died and had been replaced by a body double “Jubril” from Sudan.
Buhari said he heard he had been “cloned”, but emphasised “it’s [the] real me, I assure you”.