Muhammadu Buhari made history yesterday on two fronts: the first person to defeat an incumbent president in an election and also, as the first person in Nigeria’s democratic history to have desired power and obtained it!
The six other Nigerian civilian heads of state who preceded him bumped into office by happenstance. Sir Abubakar Tafawa, the first and only prime minister of the country was a proxy for the real leader of the country at the time, Sir Ahmadu Bello, who preferred to operate from Kaduna. The next civilian leader of the country, President Shehu Shagari had sought the Senate but intrigues within the ruling National Party of Nigeria, NPN edged out the power seekers like Alhaji Adamu Ciroma and Maitama Sule and Moshood Abiola. Others outside the NPN like Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe simply did not make it.
The ill-fated Third Republic produced Chief Ernest Shonekan, who was foisted on the leadership of the country from the boardroom in 1993 while Abiola who sought power paid for his adventure with his life.
At the outset of the Fourth Republic, among those who aspired to leadership were the likes of Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief Don Etiebet, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and Chief Jim Nwobodo but in the end, the establishment went for a man just ferried out of prison, General Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo, it was remembered, had famously derided initial talk on the plot to make him president by asking journalists “how many presidents would you make of me?”
Following Obasanjo, several Nigerians including Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, arguably the Nigerian, who best prepared himself for the presidency, vied for the 2007 succession. However, the lot fell on Umaru Musa Yar‘adua, the retiring governor of Katsina State who according to reports had wanted to retire from politics and cater to his health before the lure of the presidency overcame his initial desire.
When the weight of the presidency forced him out of office, the constitution beckoned on his deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, a man who had reportedly been famously quoted as saying that he preferred to be the governor of Bayelsa State to being vice-president.
All six of the country’s civilian leaders came to office by happenstance and were either prodded by others or by the circumstances around them. Buhari was, however, an exception.
Buhari had demonstrated leadership from the early days of his life. After graduating from the Kankia Primary School in 1955, the next year, he proceeded to the Katsina Provincial Secondary School where he became the monitor in Class 2, and he was subsequently, school prefect; a House Captain; and eventually he became the Head Boy of the school. He was also the head of the military cadet unit in the school, a development that apparently influenced his choice of the military as a profession.
Other professional choices he considered were farming and teaching.
His military career saw him hold command positions in several places, the last of which was as GOC of the 3rd Armoured Division, in Jos, from where he became military head of state in 1984.
The imprint of Buhari’s disciplined life was reflected in his leadership of the country in the 20 months he held sway until he was removed in an internal coup in August 1985.
Following that, Buhari returned to public life in 1994 when he was appointed the head of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund, PTF, an agency created by the Sani Abacha regime to use the funds realised from the increase in petrol prices in the development of infrastructure across the country.
It was in that period that Buhari’s outlook towards democracy changed following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the concomitant drive for democracy by the countries of the former communist enclave.
His sojourn into democracy was just before the 2003 presidential election. But surrounded about by people who had made politics a profession, Buhari severally found himself the object of betrayal. Intrigues and betrayals by associates within his All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP in 2003 and 2007 forced him to form his own party, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC ahead of the 2011 election. Even that was not of much help, forcing the general to out of frustration say at one time that he was through with his presidential aspiration.
But by that time his name had become a phenomenon that other power enthusiasts who had fallen out with the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP saw him as the only instrument that could remove the PDP.
Again, he offered himself and for once, a ruling party was dislodged from power by one of the few sincere men to have genuinely sought power for the benefit of the people.
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