Following his victory at the recent Nigeria’s Presidential election, Muhammadu Buhari will be sworn in as Nigeria’s president today.
He is taking over from Goodluck Jonathan who has led the country since the death of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2010.
Buhari’s swearing-in makes history as Nigeria’s first switch of power from a ruling party to an opposition.
Mr. Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party has ruled Nigeria since 1999 when the country returned to democracy. Mr. Buhari belongs to the All Progressives Congress.
Born on December 17, 1942 in Katsina state, Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari is a Nigerian politician who served as the military ruler of Nigeria (December 31, 1983 – August 27, 1985).
In 1983, Major-General Buhari and Major-General Tunde Idiagbon were selected to lead the country by middle and high-ranking military officers after a successful military coup d’etat that overthrew civilian President Shehu Shagari on December.
In 1985, Buhari was himself overthrown in a coup led by General Ibrahim Babangida on August 27th, and other members of the ruling Supreme Military Council (SMC) ostensibly, because he insisted on investigating allegations of fraudulent award of contracts in the Ministry of Defence.
Buhari contested the Presidential election as the candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party on 2003.
On 18th December 2006, Gen. Buhari was nominated as the consensus candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party.
His main challenger in the 2007 April polls was the ruling PDP’s Umaru Yar’Adua, who is also from the same state – Katsina and he lost. In March 2010, Buhari left the ANPP for the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a party that he had helped to found.
He said that he had supported foundation of the CPC “as a solution to the debilitating, ethical and ideological conflicts in my former party the ANPP”.
Buhari was the CPC Presidential candidate in the 16 April 2011 general election, running against incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and Ibrahim Shekarau of ANPP.
They were the major contenders among 20 contestants. He was running on an anti-corruption platform and pledged to remove immunity protections from government officials.
He also gave support to enforcement of Sharia law in Nigeria’s northern states, which had previously caused him political difficulties among Christian voters in the country’s south.
However, he remains a “folk hero” to some for his vocal opposition to corruption. Buhari won 12,214,853 votes, coming second to the incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, who polled 22,495,187 votes and was declared the winner candidate.
