The demise of President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday, July 13, 2025, brings to a close an era in the annals of the nation’s political history where we had a leader with effective street appeal, especially in the northern part of the country. Even though no one was able to provide a clear explanation for the blind love the Talakawas of the North professed for Buhari from his entry into partisan politics in 2003 till he was eventually elected President of Nigeria in 2015, the fact remained that Buhari was an iconic character in the eyes of his crowd across the Northern states.
The effusive show of love for their man was deafening to the whole nation in 2015, as he emerged as president after a keenly contested election. Okada riders rode dangerously across the streets of Abuja and big cities in the North in celebration. Some individuals trekked hundreds of kilometres in honour of Buhari. Some trekked from Lagos to Abuja, some from Abuja to Maidiguri and other cities just to showcase their admiration for the leader they wanted in power. On the day he was declared the winner of the election, many people died celebrating in Abuja and parts of the North, but that did not deter many more from lining up Airport Road, Abuja, as Buhari made a grand entry to the city after the election. While the love bond between Buhari and the streets of the North remains incomprehensible, many Northern leaders have concluded that the best thing that happened to the North was that Buhari emerged president in his lifetime. Some such leaders who spoke to the Nigerian Tribune said that had Buhari died without realizing his presidential ambition, his graveyard would have become a worship centre, so to say, where many would be thronging daily to pay homage to the best president Nigeria never had.
It is possible to ascribe the legendary status Buhari attained among the commoners of the North to his stern outlook during his first coming as Head of State in 1984. He was never tired of professing his austere lifestyle, he also readily flaunts the fact that all he had were his houses in Kaduna and Daura, his cattle business. Having emerged as the military ruler following the overthrow of the Second Republic President, Shehu Shagari, Buhari went on to preside over what was to become popularly known as the Buhari/Idiagbon regime. While his Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Brigadier-General Tunde Idiagbon, was largely seen as the no-nonsense soldier behind the power at the time, Buhari managed to win the hearts of his compatriots from the North and subsequently became the acclaimed democrat who could save the people from the maladministration in the land.
Maybe he got his integrity mantra from the War Against Indiscipline (WAI) campaigns his regime vigorously launched between early 1994 and August 1995, one thing that became clear, however, is that the Talakawas of the North adopted him as the most integrity-inclined political figure and one whom they could walk a long alley blindfolded. They called him Mai Gaskiya, the truthful one. They said he was worthy of their trust such that they voted for him massively on the three occasions he contested before winning the coveted seat. Ahead of the merger that produced the APC, his compatriots had reputed him as someone who had over 12 million votes in the kitty and that it was only sensible for the coalition to tap into his electoral fortune. Buhari’s former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha alluded to that when he said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was not the sole architect of his 2015 victory but Buhari’s legendary 12.5 million votes from the North.
When the Northern political establishment appeared fed up with the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003, it was Buhari, who was swiftly tapped by the region to tackle the then incumbent president, and that marked the beginning of his foray into partisan politics. In 2003, Buhai contested for the presidency on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), trailing the eventual winner, Obasanjo by a wide margin. He also contested the same position in 2007, on the platform of the same party, the ANPP, and lost to President Umar Yar’Adua, his compatriot from the same Katsina State. In 2011, Buhari decided to form his own party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and contested against President Goodluck Jonathan. He lost to the massive vote haul of votes by Jonathan in that election..
All the while, the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), led by the former Lagos State governor and incumbent Nigerian President, which had been monitoring Buhari’s strength in the North had concluded that without a merger between the North and Southern part of the country, the hope of Buhari realizing his presidential ambition in his lifetime might remain a dream till he breath his last. So, immediately after the 2011 elections, leaders of the then ACN reached out to Buhari, and the process of alliance that birthed the All Progressives Congress (APC) was underway. In 2014, the party was pronounced with an alliance that included the ACN, the ANPP, the CPC, and some members from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who christened themselves nPDP, as well as a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). The formation of the APC rocked not only the polity but also the entire political space. In 2015, the party was able to pull a fast one beyond the incumbent President Jonathan. Jonathan also went into the history books as one leader who was the first to concede defeat to a challenger in a national election.
It is instructive to note that Buhari’s initial failures in the electoral process turned him into a political agitator of a kind. He became a critic of the electoral process, especially clamouring for free and fair election each time. The violence that erupted across the North after his loss in the 2011 elections put him on the spot, somehow, as persons suspected to be his supported were linked to the violent uprising at the time.
His emergence as president in 2015 was a dream come through and testament to one of the most longstanding political perseverance of this era. He was on record as having contested the presidential election on three occasions previously; he was weary and felt everything had ended. He cried at an open event and signed off after losing the third election, where he announced his retirement from political contest. But the proponents of the ACN, ANPP, and nPDP merger pulled him out of the supposed retirement and eventually made him president. Upon emerging as president, he promised to fight corruption, fight insurgency, and stabilize the economy. Though his enthusiastic fans had rolled out a flurry of promises which Buhari later denied, he stuck to the three aforementioned and made that his mantra. Did he succeed in handing the three electoral promises to fruition? That is a question Nigerians would remain sharply divided on till tomorrow. Many would argue that insurgency blossomed in his era, even though it was largely curtailed around the three states of Yobe, Adamawa, and Borno before him. Under his watch, the scourge of insecurity got democratized to the extent that today, the North West, which was relatively calm under Jonathan, has become the centrepiece of insurgency activities.
In his first term in office, Buhari complained of working with a parliament that was hostile to his ideas as he was made to cope with a National Assembly controlled by the nPDP factors in the APC. The cat and mouse relationship between the parliament and the presidential villa apparently slowed down the pace of the executive, loyalists of the former President would say. His second term in office, which coincided with the leadership of Senator Ahmed Lawan as Senate President was however smoother than the first term. He got approvals from the National Assembly at will and was able to process foreign loans as he wished. The state of the nation’s economy at this time would make it difficult for anyone to come to the conclusion that Buhari made great strides concerning his electoral promise on the sector, what is however incontrovertible is that he not only equaled the record of President Olusegun Obasanjo as a former military ruler who got elected into office as a civilian president, serving out the two constitutionally allowed terms in the process.
One thing Buhari would be remembered for is his cult-like image among the Talakawas of the North and his acceptability among them. To this sect of Nigerians, Buhari can do no wrong, and it was commonplace to see them readily providing excuses for the failings of his administration as evidence of the rot his administration inherited. Incidentally, the political system, even in the North believes that the worth of the Buhari crowd was not transferable to any other candidate. Now that their man, whom they so much loved in the country, has answered the home call, the time has come for Buhari’s loyal constituency, the Talakawas, to join other Nigerians in saying adieu, General Muhammadu Buhari.
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