<\/p>\n
General Buhari is set to win the All Progressive Congress, APC,
\npresidential ticket with a wide margin of votes. He is leading his closest
\nrival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the former Vice President under the Olusegun
\nObasanjo’s eight year rule.<\/p>\n
The APC officials are currently sorting out ballots with General Buharia,
\na former military dictator leading.<\/p>\n
For every 10 ballots, five is for Buhari, with Atiku, Kwankwaso and
\nOkorocha sharing the balance.
\nTHE MAN BUHARI<\/p>\n
Muhammadu Buhari (born December 17, 1942) is a Nigerian politician and a
\nretired Major General in the Nigerian Army who was the military ruler of
\nNigeria from December 31, 1983 to August 27, 1985. The term Buharism is
\nascribed to the Buhari military government. He also ran unsuccessfully for
\nthe office of the President of Nigeria in the 2003, 2007 and 2011
\nelections. His ethnic background is Fulani, and his faith is Islam; he is
\na native of Daura in Katsina State of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Having joined the army in 1962, Buhari first came to widespread public
\nattention in 1976 when he became the Minister (or “Federal Commissioner”)
\nfor Petroleum and Natural Resources under then-Head of State General
\nOlusegun Obasanjo. Before then he served as Governor of the newly created
\nNorth-Eastern State during the regime of Murtala Mohammed. He later became
\nhead of the newly created Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.<\/p>\n
Major-General Buhari was selected to lead the country by middle and
\nhigh-ranking military officers after a successful military coup d’etat
\nthat overthrew civilian President Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983. At
\nthe time, Buhari was head of the Third Armored Division of Jos.[7] Buhari
\nwas appointed Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces,
\nand Tunde Idiagbon was appointed Chief of General Staff (the de facto No.
\n2 in the administration). Buhari justified the military’s seizure of power
\nby castigating the civilian government as hopelessly corrupt, and his
\nadministration subsequently initiated a public campaign against
\nindiscipline known as “War Against Indiscipline” (WAI). Aspects of this
\ncampaign included public humiliation of civil servants who arrived late
\nfor work whilst guards were armed with whips to ensure orderly queues at
\nbus stops.<\/p>\n
He also moved to silence critics of his administration, passing decrees
\ncurbing press freedoms and allowing for opponents to be detained up to
\nthree months without formal charges. He also banned strikes and lockouts
\nby workers and founded Nigeria’s first secret police force, the National
\nSecurity Organization. His government sentenced popular musician and
\npolitical critic Fela Kuti to ten years in prison on charges that Amnesty
\nInternational denounced as fabricated and politically motivated; Kuti was
\nlater pardoned and released by Buhari’s successor. In another high-profile
\nincident that sparked a diplomatic incident with Britain, British
\nofficials found Umaru Dikko, Shehu Shagari’s former transportation
\nminister drugged in a crate marked for shipment to Lagos.<\/p>\n
According to the BBC, “Buhari’s attempts to re-balance public finances by
\ncurbing imports led to many job losses and the closure of
\nbusinesses.”These losses were accompanied by a rise in prices and a
\ndecline in living standards. Some may hold contrary view to this assertion
\nand call it mischievous though, because Buhari is admired by many for his
\nuprightness and stand against corruption. His government is revered for
\nits ability to keep the country afloat by making progress through sheer
\neconomic ingenuity even when it rejected IMF loan and refused to adopt IMF
\nconditionalities to devalue the Naira. His government is praised for its
\ngain in reducing inflation by refusing to devalue the nation’s currency,
\nthe Nigerian Naira, curbing imports of needless goods, curtailing oil
\ntheft and using counter trade policy to barter seized illegally bunkered
\ncrude oil for needful goods like machineries, enabling it to export above
\nits OPEC quota.<\/p>\n
The economic principles and political ideology of the Buhari military
\ngovernment is called Buharism by some political and economic writers and
\nspeakers.<\/p>\n
In the face of the austerity measures, worsening economic conditions, and
\ncontinued widespread corruption (this is questionable as corruption was
\nsaid to have been at its lowest ebb in the Buhari\/Idiagbon regime), Buhari
\nwas himself overthrown in a coup led by General Ibrahim Babangida and
\nother members of the ruling Supreme Military Council (SMC) on August 27,
\n1985. Babangida brought many of Buhari’s most vocal critics into his
\nadministration, including Fela Kuti’s brother Olukoye Ransome-Kuti, a
\ndoctor who had led a strike against Buhari to protest declining health
\ncare services. Buhari was then detained in Benin City until 1988.<\/p>\n
Buhari’s admirers believe that he was overthrown by corrupt elements in
\nhis government who were afraid of being brought to justice as his policies
\nwere beginning to yield tangible dividends in terms of public discipline,
\ncurbing corruption, lowering inflation, enhancing workforce and improving
\nproductivity.
\nBuhari served as the Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), a body
\ncreated by the government of General Abacha, and funded from the revenue
\ngenerated by the increase in price of petroleum products, to pursue
\ndevelopmental projects around the country. A 1998 report in New African
\npraised the PTF under Buhari for its transparency, calling it a rare
\n“success story”. However, the same report also noted that critics had
\nquestioned the PTF’s allocation of 20% of its resources to the military,
\nwhich the critics feared would not be accountable for the revenue.<\/p>\n
In 2003, Buhari contested the presidential election as the candidate of
\nthe All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP). He was defeated by the People’s
\nDemocratic Party nominee, President Olus\u1eb9gun \u1eccbasanj\u1ecd,
\nby a margin of more than eleven million votes. It was claimed by Buhari’s
\nsupporters and other members of the opposition that in some states, like
\nEbonyi, there were more votes than there were registered voters. Although
\nsome allegations of fraud were proven in the courts and the conduct of the
\nelection was criticized by the Commonwealth Observer Group, the consensus
\namong Nigerians was that he should not waste his time in court as he did
\nnot have the necessary resources to “buy” himself justice.[citation
\nneeded] Eventually, the same court also decided that the level of proven
\nelectoral fraud was not sufficient to affect the outcome of the election
\nand to warrant the cancellation of the whole Presidential election.<\/p>\n
On 18 December 2006, Gen. Buhari was nominated as the consensus candidate
\nof the All Nigeria People’s Party. His main challenger in the April 2007
\npolls was the ruling PDP candidate, Umaru Yar’Adua, who hailed from the
\nsame home state of Katsina. In the election, Buhari officially took 18% of
\nthe vote against 70% for Yar’Adua, but Buhari rejected these results.
\nAfter Yar’Adua took office, the ANPP agreed to join his government, but
\nBuhari denounced this agreement.<\/p>\n
In March 2010, Buhari left the ANPP for the Congress for Progressive
\nChange (CPC), a party that he had helped to found. He said that he had
\nsupported foundation of the CPC “as a solution to the debilitating,
\nethical and ideological conflicts in my former party the ANPP”.<\/p>\n
Buhari was the CPC Presidential candidate in the 16 April 2011 general
\nelection, running against incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the
\nPeople’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of Action Congress of
\nNigeria (ACN), and Ibrahim Shekarau of ANPP. They were the major
\ncontenders among 20 contestants. He was running on an anti-corruption
\nplatform and pledged to remove immunity protections from government
\nofficials. He also gave support to enforcement of Sharia law in Nigeria’s
\nnorthern states, which had previously caused him political difficulties
\namong Christian voters in the country’s south. However, he remains a “folk
\nhero” to some for his vocal opposition to corruption. Buhari won
\n12,214,853 votes, coming second to the incumbent president Goodluck
\nJonathan of the PDP, who polled 22,495,187 votes and was declared the
\nwinner.<\/p>\n
In May 2014, in the wake of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping, Buhari strongly
\ndenounced the Boko Haram insurgency. He “urged Nigerians to put aside
\npolitics and all other divisions to crush the insurgency he said is fanned
\nby mindless bigots masquerading as Muslims.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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