How Buhari ‘died’ and ‘rose’ many times

By Nehru Odeh

Nigeria’s former president, Mohammad Buhari’s life is a study in contrasts. This was a man who lived most of his active life as a gallant soldier and spent his twilight years as a civilian president. This was a man who fought gallantly in the Nigerian civil war to keep his country one but ended up at he later part of his battling Boko Haram insurgency.

This was a man who shot to fame after he became military head of State of his country after late President Shehu Shagari was overthrown on December 31, 1983 but later became an exponent of democracy.

This was a man whose brief reign as a military head of State was known for instilling discipline in Nigeria and its no-nonsense policies but later ended up as a president who many believed was nonchalant and aloof and, like the Roman Emperor Nero fiddled while his country burnt.

Many used the photo of Buhari reclining on a sofa with a toothpick in his mouth, ostensibly after a meal, to portray his nonchalance and aloofness. “I can’t come and kill myself. Everyman should carry his own cross. Everyman for himself, God for us all,” his countenance was interpreted as saying.

This was a man who fought corruption to a standstill as a military head of State and threw many corrupt politicians into prison but ended up finding it difficult to battle corruption during his days as a civilian president; which earned him the epithet, “Baba Go Slow.”

“They Call Me ‘Baba Go Slow’ But I Won’t Stop Trying My Best,” he was once quoted as saying. But many Nigerians believed his best wasn’t good enough.

This was a man who, as a young dashing military officer and head of State, was very active and sprightly but ended up in his twilight years battling ill health, moving in and out of hospital and taking incessant medical trips abroad. Many will of course attribute that to old age, which, of course, no body has control over.

This was a man who is the only Nigerian military head of State whose regime was terminated in a coup detat and rode back triumphantly to Aso Rock on the back of popular vote.

But that is not all about Buhari. His life was the stuff of legend. And like every legend he led not just contrasting lives but also took a road not taken. Like every legend, he led many lives and was at home with both the rich and the poor, a trait which also pinpoints his contrasting nature.

He was spartan and austere and was content with what he had. While he had several opportunities in the various public offices he occupied to enrich himself like others, he chose to keep a low profile and was at home with the poor and the downtrodden, perhaps based on his religious ethos. Little wonder his people gave him the appellation “Mai Gaskiya”, meaning the honest one.

Still, no matter the kind of life he led, Buhari, who died in a London hospital on Sunday, July 13 and was buried in his Daura residence in Katsina State on Tuesday, July 15, remains controversial even in death as he was in life.

Many Nigerians believe and still parrot a story that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, continuously peddled before his incarceration that Buhari had died and had been buried in Saudi Arabia since 2017.

They believe what Kanu has said, that after his supposed death in 2017, his lookalike , a man called Jubril who hails from Sudan was brought into Aso Rock to replace him as President.

Another story has it that the Buhari that was in Aso Rock after 2017 was not the one Nigerians used to know, that not only was he fake but he was cloned. Many Nigerians still believe and can swear with their lives that the man that was given a state burial on Tuesday, July 15, 2015 was not Buhari but the fake one.

They continuously cite so many reasons to convince other Nigerians about the infallibility of their stories, one of which is that Aisha Buhari, the late President’s wife left Aso Rock and relocated to Dubai simply because, according to her, the man they brought to Aso Rock in 2017 was not her husband.

Another reason they cite to back up their claims propped up even after Buhari’s death in a London hospital. According to them the fact that world leaders have not sent messages of condolences to the Nigerian government buttresses their claim that Buhari had died long ago, adding that his death knell was no longer news to those leaders since they know he had died long before now.

This indeed is the stuff of legends. This indeed is the stuff of immortals. Buhari is the only leader in world history who many believe died and was later cloned. He is the only Nigerian leader who was controversial in life and still remains so in death.

He is the only Nigerian leader whose military rule was forcibly terminated and who came back as a civilian president. He is the only leader who ‘died’ and ‘rose’ many times as a public servant.

Even now that he has died and been buried in his modest Daura Residence, Buhari still lives in the minds and hearts of Nigerians either as a saint or a villain, a patriot or an ethnic bigot.

And many are going to talk about his many lives and deaths till the end of history. That means though his bones have been interred, he has not actually died. He lives yet and maybe will die again, that is if history is not kind to him.

Still, I will end this piece with the famous oration by Marc Antony. “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar.”

So let it be with Buhari. And may his soul finally find rest after this death