@The Man Buhar i Born on December 17, 1942, in Daura, Katsina State, General Muhammdu Buhari, a retired General, was Head of State from December 31, 1983 to August 27, 1985. Buhari, who joined the army in 1962, came to widespread public attention in 1976, when he became the Minister (or Federal Commissioner) for Petroleum and Natural Resources under the then Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo. He had earlier served as a Governor of the then newly created North-Eastern State in the regime of the late Gen. Murtala Mohammed. Buhari, who is the presidential standard bearer of the All Progressive Party (PDP), later became Chairman, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Buhari, who was Head of the Third Armored Division of Jos, became the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in 1983, following a military coup that overthrew the civilian administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. The late Maj-Gen Tunde Idiagbon was the Chief of General Staff in the administration. Buhari initiated a public campaign against indiscipline with the “War Against Indiscipline (WAI)” during his regime. He served as the Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), a body created by the administration of the late Gen. Sani Abacha and funded from revenue generated from the increase in the prices of petroleum products to pursue developmental projects. Buhari, who contested the presidential election in 2003 on the platform of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) but lost to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). On December 18, 2006, the former head of state was nominated as the consensus candidate of the ANPP to run against his kinsmen at the April 2007 poll, Alhaji Umaru Yar A’dua. He, however, dumped the ANNP in March 2010 for the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a party he helped formed and nurtured. Buhari had explained his exit from the ANPP to the CPC “as a solution to the debilitating, ethical and ideological conflicts in my former party the ANPP”. He ran, as the CPC presidential candidate, against President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Ibrahim Shekarau of the ANPP in the April 16, 2011 general elections. Though his three previous attempts (in the 2003, 2007 and 2011) to return to the Government House were unsuccessful, Buhari got on the track yesterday by clinching the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (CPC), when for the office of the president of Nigeria general elections. Source
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 15:07:04 +0000
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