Buhari was a member of the cohorts of idealistic middle level soldiers responsible for the third coup, and the only the second successful coup in a young, expectant and now potentially rich African nation. When Murtala Mohammed was swept into power as part of a coup that ended then General Gowon's long reign Buhari became the Governor of the then North Eastern State, and on Mohammed's assassination in another coup just 18 months into his widely acclaimed government, Buhari again ascended, this time as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum, Nigeria's black gold.
That stint as the head of the ministry that oversaw Nigeria's petroleum resources, which has by then crowded out all other sources of revenue and was beginning to seem like the curse it would soon become, gave rise to one of the biggest stains on Buhari's records. The case of missing 2.8 billion naira. In those days, the one naira was approximately equal to a pound. Many military and civilian inquiries into the supposed missing funds will go on to claim no money was missing, but the story line never went away.
After the military hand over of power to civilians in 1979, Buhari, like many of his peers in the ruling military, returned to the barack where he was later appointed commanding general of the third armored division of Jos. a position he held until the crises of the 1983 election gave another excuse to the officers who were close enough to supreme power, but never wielded it, to outs the newly reelected government of President Shehu Shagari and install General Buhari as the new Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
And then the second major stain on the General started to grow as his government, under the direction of General Tunde Idiagbon, the then Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, who was then responsible for the War Against Indiscipline and Corruption, execution. During the almost two years reign as a Nigeria's most brutal dictator to date, Buhari oversaw the arrest and detention of anyone deemed unruly or to be challenging his government. His government strong armed the civil opposition, battled corruption, seized properties, kidnapped and imprisoned journalists and civil right activists and summarily executed others. The Buhari-Idiagbon regime was a brutal dictatorship, even worse than the Obasanjo - Yaraduah dictatorship before it. But, Idiagbon was also a symbol of incorruptibility, mostly, and it was this incorruptible image many Nigerians missed after a toothed member of the Supreme Millitary Council (de-facto parliament), through a palace coup supplanted Buhari and Idiagbon in August of 1985.
General Ibrahim Babangida was a more polished dictator who suffered corruption nicely, and was
As the turmoil of the Babangida years paved way for the horrors of the Abacha years, the clamor for civilian rule reached a crescendo, and somehow, an aging, one time military ruler was somehow called in to help chaperone a new age of civilian rule. Obasanjo, true to form ran a pan Nigerian (or better yet a pan African) government, bringing in technocrats and acting as a "statesman" for whom the office of the Nigerian Presidency was supposed to be a dress rehearsal for some international job. Buhari started lurking in the shadows.
As the PDP - Obasanjo led years progressed, the need for a competent, non-corrupt, perhaps even a strongman leader continued to rise, and after the untimely death of Idiagbon, and given the parade of the usual charlatans and political jobbers running for office, other than Pat Utomi, Mohammed Buhari was the only realistic chance for good leadership in the horizon. Far from perfect, Buhari has a history as a nationalistic leader (that might change) with the fortitude to help usher in a semblance of the promise that Nigeria once was for the African continent.
Nigeria was once a rich nation, san oil, and petroleum was supposed to help grease its ascendancy into the committee of top 20 economies in the 1980s. Graft, incompetent leadership, mediocrity in the civil service, police brutality and military meddlesomeness helps stunt any hope of growth. Buhari holds out the hope that many of these cancers that blights the trajectory of Africa's most populous nation can finally be stanched and that Nigeria can indeed rise as a respected member in the comity of nations. As a write this blogpost, I just saw the headline that President Goodluck Jonathan, the accidental
President who lasted a little longer than planned has finally conceded the Presidency, and made history as the man to usher in Nigeria's first true transition of power within a democracy. Regardless of his failures as President, history will judge Jonathan well for his shepherd of Nigeria towards real democracy. Congrats Mr. President, and Gob bless the President elect.
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