The death of General Muhammadu Buhari on July 13, 2025, in a London hospital is a haunting image of the contradictions which surrounded his singular but ultimately disappointing political career.
This was a man who twice promised to remake Nigeria to his taste, first as a military dictator from 1983 to 1985 and then as a democratically elected president from 2015 to 2023, and who died at his last gasp, not in the country he professed to love but within the sterile confines of a foreign medical clinic.
His death in a UK hospital symbolizes the inherent gap between his patriotic rhetoric and his overall failure as a leader.
Buhari’s story is one of two discrete acts of power, separated by four decades but held together by a common thread of unfulfilled potential.
The sad story of Muhammadu Buhari is not in his motivations, which were often altruistic, but in his simple failure to perceive what effective leadership required in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and complex democracy like Nigeria.
Muhammadu Buhari climbed from humble beginnings to be among the most influential persons in Nigerian history, sharing the record of both civilian and military leadership with just General Olusegun Obasanjo.
The man from Daura started his military life in 1962 when he was commissioned into the post-colonial military.
It was during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) that Buhari came into his own as a military commander.
With the 1st Division of Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Shuwa, he fought with distinction.
As Second Sector Infantry Company Commander, Buhari took part in critical operations from Afikpo to Enugu, fighting for Nigerian unity at a time of greatest adversity.
When his brigade was attacked while guarding vital supply routes, he demonstrated bravery and competence.
His combat experience for national cohesion would later influence his political philosophy.
On December 31, 1983, Major General Muhammadu Buhari led a bloodless coup that toppled the civilian government of President Shehu Shagari on grounds of corruption and economic mismanagement, shutting down a non-performing Second Republic.
Accompanied by an able deputy, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, he led one of the most disciplined military administrations in Nigeria.
Buhari set out on a massive plan of national reorientation in the War Against Indiscipline (WAI), launched in March 1984.
The campaign transformed the daily lives of millions of Nigerians in five broad phases: queuing culture, work ethics, environmental sanitation, anti-corruption and national pride.
The queuing culture initiative changed public behaviour, with Nigerians lining up in a queue for the first time in decades at bus stops, banks, and government agencies.
Environmental sanitation program neatened up cities across the nation, with each month’s sanitation exercise causing people to pay attention to cleanliness.
The sanitation program continues to exist in some way or another in Nigeria to this day.
The government recovered billions of naira stolen from the treasury Second Republic politicians, demonstrating that corruption could be contained and discouraged.
Above all, the regime tightened the naira through strict foreign exchange controls and induced local production of goods.
Government bureaucracy improved dramatically, with bureaucrats forced to attend to work on time and being held responsible for outputs.
The period of military dictatorship solidified Buhari’s reputation as an honest, reliable leader who could deliver results, protracting his political life by a span of three decades.
It was the reputation of integrity that qualified him, maybe, for the chairmanship of the Petroleum Trust Fund during General Sani Abacha’s military regime.
In this position, however, without Idiagbon, Buhari’s performance was below par. It was a warning.
As President Buhari took oath on May 29, 2015, after his fourth presidential bid, when he defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, expectations soared.
Nigerians needed General Buhari, who tried to rebuild Nigeria with Idiagbon, for a renewed Nigeria.
Instead, there followed eight years of profound regret that would tarnish his legacy and leave Nigeria worse off than when he took office.
Security Disaster
Maybe nowhere was Buhari’s failure more evident than in security. Instead of the peace his campaign promised, Nigeria experienced record bouts of terrorism and banditry.
Armed bandits who rode roughshod over Nigeria turned kidnapping into big business, with massive kidnappings occurring as a daily norm.
Most destructive was his response to the Fulani herdsmen conflict.
These nomadic cattle grazers, many of the same ethnic stock as Buhari, made brazen and brutal attacks on farming villages, burning them down, slaughtering thousands of farmers, and driving whole populations off the land.
The herdsmen’s criminal activities also involved hostage-taking, murder, and rape that created an environment of fear.
Barely were they taken to court. Instead, those who dared arrest herdsmen were themselves rounded up and transferred from Ile-Ife to Abuja for prosecution.
Buhari’s response was characterised by sinister reluctance to deal firmly with criminals, rather attempting to establish Ruga settlements in accordance with colonial blueprint, across Nigeria.
His administration incessantly refused to arrest, prosecute, or aggressively investigate the criminal herders, and in so doing, gave the perception that their president placed ethnic loyalty above national security.
The Poison of Nepotism
Buhari’s own embrace of nepotism and tribalism destroyed any semblance of his being a national leader.
The individual who once preached meritocracy packed his administration with Fulani kinsmen and northern cronies, and established what critics referred to as “nuclear nepotism.”
Key government positions were methodically filled with individuals from Buhari’s extended family, hometown, state or ethnic group.
The presidential estate was dominated by a cabal of northern influence-peddlers who controlled the president’s access.
The issue became so prevalent that Buhari’s own wife, Aisha, went public griping that her husband had been “taken hostage” by his aides.
This nepotistic style of leadership diminished accountability, nourished corruption, and significantly weakened national unity as millions of Nigerians felt excluded, betrayed and helpless.
Indecent Medical Sojourn
No issue possibly captured Buhari’s failures better than his persistent practice of medical tourism in the UK.
Under his watch, he took numerous long sojourns in London for medical examinations, spending weeks or months away from Nigeria while the country’s healthcare system remained in shambles.
Not only was Buhari absent for so long, he would not even explain to Nigerians what he was being treated for. In 2017 alone, he was away for 104 days, ruling by fiat from the UK.
The move was more infuriating given his promises during the campaign to close down medical tourism by building world-class hospitals in Nigeria, which never saw the light of day.
His death in July 2025 at a London hospital became the biggest irony of his failure to reform Nigerian healthcare.
Crisis Management
Buhari’s emotional callousness and inability to provide effective leadership were brutally illustrated in the October 2020 EndSARS protests.
While young Nigerians protested against police brutality, violence and oppression were unleashed on them.
The much-awaited national broadcast was flat and his response revealed a leader who was completely out of touch with the wishes of Nigerians, devoid of emotion or solutions to legitimate issues.
The poor handling of the protests led to the deaths of young Nigerians, yet shrouded in mystery.
Economic Mismanagement
Although he was well-known for economic frugality while a military head of state, Buhari’s civilian administration was spectacularly unsuccessful.
Nigeria’s debt increased from 18% GDP to 35% GDP, and inflation jumped to 22.4%.
The only policy response by Buhari to an economic crisis caused by a fall in international oil prices and Covid-19 was massive borrowing.
The government witnessed two economic recessions, and the naira was among the worst-performing currencies globally.
Rather than deal with currency and oil subsidy policy appropriately, he borrowed Nigeria’s economy into astronomical debt.
The Legacy
The underlying tragedy of Buhari’s adventure is the absolute disparity between his clear good intentions and his complete inability to channel those intentions into successful democratic leadership.
As a military leader, his autocratic nature allowed for impressive reforms.
But those same characteristics proved to be shortcomings in a democracy that needed emotional intelligence, coalition formation, and an inspiring rather than a commanding approach.
Buhari never appeared to appreciate that leadership under democracy is not the same as in military rule.
Failing to deliver on political campaign promises, attempting to impose his favored successor (brought down by northern governors), and a lack of empathy all attested to a leader who was simply not ready for democracy.
As Nigerians continue their speak-no-evil-of-the-dead culture, my tough-as-nails assessment is one of profound disappointment and missed opportunities.
Here was a man who had the trust of millions, had demonstrated competence in wielding leadership, and had multiple opportunities to transform his country. Instead, his presidency was a tutorial on how to confuse good intentions with good leadership.
The difference in his military and civilian leadership reveals the fundamental truth: he was a man of honor and a patriot who simply lacked the skills to be an effective democratic leader.
His honesty and incorruptibility, however admirable, were insufficient to compensate for his deficiencies as an emotionally intelligent and visionary leader.
Buhari’s failure to understand what leadership would mean in a democratic context made him unable to become the great Nigerian leader he hoped to be. Instead of the prosperous, safe, and orderly Nigeria he vowed, he left behind a more indebted, more polarized, and more insecure nation than he inherited.
The tragedy is not that he was bad or corrupt – by most accounts, he was not.
The tragedy is that he was a leader whose moment had passed, whose skills were outdated, and whose leadership experience was intrinsically unsuited to the challenges facing him.
Although Buhari was coming across as attempting to be honest and patriotic, he did not understand what it means to be a leader and seemed unable to become the great Nigerian leader that he would have wanted to be remembered as.
His death in a London hospital is an apt metaphor for a presidency of disconnection and persistent gap between promise and delivery.
Muhammadu Buhari will be remembered not as the transformational president, but as a cautionary tale concerning the importance of matching leadership competencies with leadership challenges of democratic governance.