Muhammadu Buhari GCFR (born 17 December 1942)
is the President of Nigeria,
in office since 2015. He is a retired major general in
the Nigerian Army and previously served as the
nation's head of state from 31 December 1983 to 27 August 1985, after taking
power in a military coup d'état. The
term Buharism is
ascribed to the Buhari military government.
He unsuccessfully ran for the office of president in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 general
elections. In December 2014, he emerged as the presidential candidate of
the All Progressives Congress for
the March 2015 general elections. Buhari won
the election, defeating the incumbent President Goodluck
Jonathan. This marked the first time in the history of Nigeria that
an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate in a general election.
He was sworn in on 29 May 2015.
Buhari has stated that he takes responsibility for anything over
which he presided during his military rule, and that he cannot change the past.
He has described himself as a "converted democrat".
Early life
Muhammadu Buhari was born to
a Fulani family on 17 December 1942, in Daura,
Katsina State, to his father Adamu and 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 four years old.
He attended primary school in Daura and Mai'adua before
proceeding to Katsina Model School in 1953, and to Katsina Provincial Secondary
School (now Government College Katsina) from 1956 to 1961.
Early
Military Career
Buhari joined the Nigerian Army by enrolling in the Nigerian
Military Training College (NMTC) in 1961. 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).
From 1962 to 1963, Buhari underwent officer cadet training at Mons Officer
Cadet School in Aldershot in England.
In January 1963, 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 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 appointed brigade major, Second Sector, First Infantry
Division, April 1967 to July 1967.
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