Muhammadu Buhari: Nigeria mourns its ex-president and military man
Nigeria is currently experiencing a deep period of national mourning and for seven days, President Bola Tinubu has mandated that flags be flown at half-mast.
Buhari's death marks the end of an important chapter for Africa's most populous country.
He leaves behind a legacy, characterised by both heroic service and difficult obstacles.
Muhammadu Buhari was born in Daura, in Northern Nigeria's Katsina State, in December 1942.
Buhari enrolled in the Nigerian Military Training College in Kaduna in 1962 at age 20, approximately two years after Nigeria gained independence from Britain on 1 October 1960.
Buhari ascended to prominence in 1983, assuming the role of Nigeria's military head of state following a coup that resulted in the ousting of President Shehu Shagari.
During this period, the 'War Against Indiscipline' policy aimed to promote a thorough reorientation of social norms.
The government implemented stringent measures to combat corruption and maintain discipline.
From January 1984 to August 1985, his military rule was characterised by a firm stance against corruption.
In 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida executed a coup d'état, resulting in the ousting of Buhari. Subsequent to this, Buhari encountered a phase of confinement.
Despite his prior military command, he subsequently embarked on a career in democratic governance.
His ascension to power was a protracted and challenging endeavour.
After three unsuccessful attempts to become president, Buhari finally achieved a significant victory in the 2015 election, beating then-incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan for the first time.
During his campaign, Buhari declared his commitment to addressing the pressing issues of corruption, insecurity and the economy in the country.
After taking office, Buhari's administration had to deal with several issues, chief among them being the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.
His administration made key gains against Boko Haram from 2015 to 2023, but faced new security threats.
Recessions and high rates of inflation have plagued the economy, partly due to the decline in oil prices.
To consolidate government revenue, the administration implemented several policies, with the Treasury Single Account being the most notable.
Buhari's unwavering personal integrity has always distinguished his public persona.
Many Nigerians were impressed by Buhari's apparent honesty in a political climate often characterised by corruption.
His administration faced criticism for human rights violations, especially concerning the 2020 End of Special Anti-Robbery Squad demonstrations.
The administration's approach to various issues, including the tensions between agriculturalists and pastoralists and the need for economic diversification, has sparked significant discourse.
Given these obstacles, his supporters claimed that he made a sincere effort to further Nigeria's development. Many individuals perceived him as a steadfast patriot.
Buhari's anti-corruption campaign faced opposition from several industries.
Atiku Abubakar and other opposition figures have accused him of shielding dishonest associates.
Legal experts, including senior advocate of Nigeria Olisa Agbakoba, described the campaign as politically motivated and discriminatory.
Bishop Matthew Kukah was among the religious leaders who criticised the government for using anti-corruption initiatives as tools for political manipulation.
Watchdog groups such as Transparency International and the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project criticised the administration for failing to pursue its close associates.
Buhari passed away at the age of 82 following a lengthy illness, according to Bayo Onanuga, the spokesperson for President Tinubu.
Details of his illness were not disclosed, but it is known that he had been receiving medical treatment in London for a few days prior to his death.
Vice-President Kashim Shettima will accompany Buhari's body back to Nigeria, and the governor of Katsina State, Dikko Umaru Radda, announced that Buhari's remains would arrive in Katsina on 15 July 2025, for burial in his hometown of Daura. WHAT WILL BUHARI'S ENDURING LEGACY BE IN NIGERIA'S HISTORY?
Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 11.
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3 days ago
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The struggle is still the subject of much discussion and debate on questions of war and peace globally, with the ANC's policy against targeting civilians in the conduct of armed action and its fidelity to the principle of non-racialism, constitutionalism, and reconciliation and nation-building among the prominent highlights. Throughout its three decades in exile, the ANC led the struggle against apartheid on a moral basis, earning the respect and admiration of friends and foes at home and around the world. The struggle is still the subject of much discussion and debate on questions of war and peace globally, with the ANC's policy against targeting civilians in the conduct of armed action and its fidelity to the principle of nonracialism, constitutionalism, and reconciliation and nation-building among the prominent highlights. The apartheid regime and its international allies worked tirelessly to portray the ANC in the most negative light imaginable, including by exaggerating internal organisational challenges and problems as well as manufacturing blatant lies. The facts were irrelevant as long as the goal of tarnishing the image of the ANC was met. Thirty years after its demise, the apartheid regime's bad habits appear to linger on in Mashele's head, polluting the public discourse. A faithful apartheid apologist Mashele also conjures an imaginary and delusional vision of townships and rural communities, which he claims 'used to be proper' in the apartheid years but were destroyed by the ANC after 1994. This is a shocking example of his faithful devotion to the apartheid project. One wonders which townships and rural areas Mashele is referring to. Could they be the same ones that had no water and sanitation, electricity, paved roads and other basic amenities before 1994? Whatever Mashele means by 'proper' townships and rural areas does not correspond with the lived experience of his contemporaries in apartheid-era Bushbuckridge, where he grew up, nor is it reflective of the experiences of millions of other South Africans across the country. A superficial understanding of South Africa's dynamics Another of Mashele's anti-ANC tirades concerns employment. The apartheid era was supposedly a time of plenty — 'We would find jobs' — but now, the 'ANC destroyed the backbone of the economy,' he says. Nobody disputes that South Africa has an unemployment problem. However, one expects some rigour from a public intellectual. So, let us consider the question of unemployment. In 1994, South Africa had 8.9-million employed people — excluding those in the Bantustans — out of a working-age population of 18.8-million. With an estimated working-age population of 41-million people today — a 40% increase in the population since 1994 — employment stands at 16.79-million, an 88% growth in employed individuals. While it is far from adequate, the economy has nonetheless absorbed a substantial portion of the expanding labour force, reflecting a notable increase in formal employment opportunities over the past three decades. In 1992, GDP was about $146.96bn (R2.6-trillion). Today, GDP is three times higher, at $405.06bn (R7.2-trillion). If the ANC has destroyed the backbone of the economy, as Mashele alleges, how has the economy risen threefold? As the leading political party since 1994, the ANC surely shares the blame for unemployment. But the fact that the private sector controls slightly more than 70% of the South African economy is not an inconsequential fact. No serious analysis about unemployment can exonerate the private sector from the problem. According to a 2024 working paper published by the SA Reserve Bank, local banks generally hold excess liquidity, with their Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) consistently exceeding the 100% minimum even before it became a regulatory requirement in 2018. This reflects a high-risk aversion to lending and investment. While it provides financial stability, it limits the availability of credit, particularly for small businesses, which require higher-risk investments. It also reduces the funding available for expansion, especially in manufacturing and infrastructure, which are critical for economic growth and labour absorption. Understandably, Mashele will not so much as whisper this for fear of causing a drought in his paid speaking opportunities. Like other entrepreneurs, Mashele has searched for and discovered his niche and has done exceptionally well. As a professional anti-ANC entrepreneur, he is carrying on a long tradition, dating back to the colonial era, of people willing to be conveyor belts of ideas that feathered their nests, even if they contradicted the facts or the interests of much of society. Purveyor of egotistical drivel Mashele is dismissive of newly appointed acting minister of safety and security Firoz Cachalia's credentials: 'By the way, this chap was supposed to retire. He is old; he has no energy. There is nothing outstanding that this professor has done. All he has done is that he is an ANC-linked professor. 'By the way, I have been in academia myself, so I can say what I am saying. There are competent and incompetent academics. This professor, by the way, I wouldn't count among the competent academics. What is it that he has done outstandingly that qualifies him to come and manage a crisis like this? Absolutely nothing!' Cachalia is a respected anti-apartheid activist who made a significant contribution to the liberation of South Africa and the post-1994 democratic order. He was tortured by apartheid securocrats while Mashele was still wiping snot from his cheek. An accomplished legal academic who thinks more, speaks less, and does a lot more, Cachalia is also a former MEC of safety and security in Gauteng. Surely, he is worthier of the ear than Mashele, the prince of egotistical grandeur and armchair purveyor of crude opinions of little practical value. To assert that Cachalia's only claim to fame is his membership of the ANC is the zenith of vulgarity. It is the same churlishness and platitudinal mindset that drove Mashele, with characteristic theatrical performance for pleasing his audience, to insult Eric Nkovani, aka Papa Penny, calling him 'an idiot' on the grounds that 'the guy has not been to school'. True to his egoistical character, Mashele could not resist contrasting himself with Nkovani: 'I have a master's degree,' he declared. It must follow that in Mashele's book, millions of other people who did not have the opportunity to go to school are just as idiotic. The absolute necessity of formal education is unquestionable, but when the educated — or is it certificated? — equate a lack of it with idiocy, it underscores the need for an educated discourse about education covering such issues as the history of Black people's access to education in South Africa, the political economy of knowledge production, and the ends to which it can be put, especially in a postcolonial developing country context. If Mashele had a grain of humility or bothered to research his subjects, he would understand that he is neither worthy to validate nor sit in judgment over Cachalia. He would also appreciate that abusing Nkovani, whose lack of formal education is one of the multiple negatives of our history of disenfranchisement, is a grave insult to millions of people. It reveals more about him than his target of derision. Be transparent about your allegiances. Mashele also expresses his support of Helen Zille's bid for mayorship of the City of Johannesburg. He stated, 'I am not a supporter of the DA. I am very clear. If Helen Zille wins the contest to become mayoral candidate of Johannesburg, I am going to do something I have never done in my life. I am going to publicly endorse her.' With his signature bravado, he added, 'Did you hear that? This is big. I am going to do something I have never done in my life, with a heavy heart.' Leaving aside the vainglorious oath, the plain truth is that Mashele has no political stature that would make his support of Zille or any candidate across the party-political divide a matter of any significance. Another important truth he omits or deliberately conceals is that he has been a supporter of the DA or harboured aspirations in that direction for well over a decade. In her 2016 autobiography, Zille disclosed that Mashele was part of an Agang South Africa team that negotiated the ephemeral merger of Mamphela Ramphele's now-defunct party and the DA four years previously. The talks were held 'at a beautiful old-world guest house with high ceilings in Oranjezicht, Cape Town' under an 'atmosphere [that] could not have been more convivial.' To cap it all off, the guest house staff 'kept us well nourished for our task, with lovely home-bakes at tea and delicious plates of home-cooked food at mealtimes.' As it happened, 'Prince Mashele drafted the first position paper. He titled it 'Strategic Perspective for South Africa: Repositioning the DA for greater leadership responsibility'' and 'Ryan [Coetzee] shortened it and gave it the title 'The DA's Path to the Future'.' Evidently, Mashele's stake in Zille's political trajectory is nothing new. In August 2019, the media also published reports about 'an application form that Mashele allegedly completed on June 30 [2018] to be a DA 2019 candidate to the provincial legislature and national parliament.' So, even the most politically naive will regard Mashele's claim to endorse Zille 'with a heavy heart' with a shovel of salt. Doctrinally, the ANC respects and defends Mashele's right to associate as he pleases. So, while his nomadic floor-crossing adventures from the ANC to Agang SA, the DA, Herman Mashaba's ActionSA, and back to the DA might attract entertaining and disparaging adjectives, it is multiparty democracy in action. Doctrinally, the ANC respects and defends Mashele's right to associate as he pleases. So, while his nomadic floor-crossing adventures from the ANC to Agang SA, the DA, Herman Mashaba's ActionSA, and back to the DA might attract entertaining and disparaging adjectives, it is multiparty democracy in action. For this reason, Mashele does not need to toil as an underground operative of the DA in a free and democratic country. He just needs to be honest about his political allegiances and to dispel falsehoods like the prevalent urban legend that Mashele served as former president Thabo Mbeki's speech writer when he worked in the presidency. Mbeki's speech writer was veteran ANC activist and author Magashe Titus Mafolo, who says Mashele did not once contribute a single sentence to the speeches. Beware the intellectual mercenary. At the end of the podcast, Mashele discusses the role of public intellectuals, claiming that they should serve as the 'conscience of society' by speaking their mind to contribute to political discourse and empowering society. Yet his own track record is less than stellar. Take, for instance, the scandal surrounding Mashele's 2023 book about Herman Mashaba. It emerged that not only was Mashaba directly involved in shaping the content of the book, but he also financed it to the tune of R12.5m. The revelation led to Jonathan Ball Publishers withdrawing the book for the author's failure to disclose the glaring conflict of interest. Mashele — who postures as the guardian of intellectual independence — co-authored and benefited from a vanity project masquerading as impartial political analysis. If this is the 'public intellectual' he speaks of, then the category itself is in urgent need of rescue from the commercial exploits of practitioners like Mashele. As already alluded to, Mashele's problem is not that he has political opinions; everyone does. It is that he cloaks his political entrepreneurship in the language of principle, employing the authority of the 'public intellectual' to wage partisan battles and pursue commercial interests while pretending to be above them. In the end, he is less the fearless truth-teller he pretends to be and more a poster boy of intellectual vanity and the profit motive outpacing moral consistency. This betrays his position as an intellectual mercenary who knows where the bread is buttered. It reminds one of a 19th-century observer who observed that Napoleon Bonaparte was 'endowed ... with the most developed antennae for feeling out the weak moments when he might squeeze money from his bourgeois[ie].' Examine Mashele closely, and you realise that he does not illuminate an intelligent appreciation of the country's problems and challenges. Rather, he selects national concerns, oversimplifies them into binary opposites if not vulgarises them altogether, and then drowns out everyone while enchanting his audience in theatre. He has the gift of gab too. Mashele is a performer, and all his public appearances are invariably solo performances. His constant and cherished device is whipping up an emotional frenzy. This approach does not help us to understand the multiple and layered causes of our daily experiences; by its nature, a small aperture forbids a wider picture. It may appeal to our immediate emotions — 'our weak moments' — but it is of little if any strategic value in the search for sustainable answers to national problems and challenges. So, beware the intellectual mercenary.
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3 days ago
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