Seven Questions for Max Siollun on the Life and Legacy of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari

"To some extent Buhari came too early (1984) and too late (2015) for Nigeria."

Nigeria’s former President Muhammadu Buhari died on July 13. Buhari, born in 1942, served twice as Nigerian head of state - once as military ruler (1984-1985) and once as elected civilian president (2015-2023). His victory in 2015 was one of the most dramatic events in Nigeria’s electoral and political history, but his presidency featured numerous security and economic challenges (many of which he inherited, to be fair).

To discuss his life and legacy, I turned to Max Siollun, the accomplished and prolific historian of Nigeria, who has extensively chronicled Nigeria’s periods of military rule. Dr. Siollun’s books include the two Soldiers of Fortune volumes, the first of which takes up Buhari as a central subject (Buhari features extensively in the second volume as well). Siollun’s latest book is The Forgotten Era: Nigeria Before British Rule (Pluto, 2025).

AT: You have written about the "Class of 1966" as a key group of officers in Nigeria. Could you explain this phrase for us and tell us about some of the central members of this group?

MS: The January and July 1966 military coups in Nigeria, and the resulting civil war the following year, propelled a group of young military officers onto the national stage (including Buhari who was a participant in the July 1966 coup and the civil war). Back then most of these officers were in their 20s. Now wealthy octogenarian grandfathers, they still wield enormous influence in Nigerian politics.. Every Nigerian head of state between 1966 and 2011 was a member of this "Class of 1966"; and had a direct personal or family relationship to the 1966 crisis. They are the "founding fathers" of modern Nigeria.

AT: What is your assessment of Buhari's time as military ruler? What were his main achievements and failures?

MS: Buhari’s supporters think that his 1984-1985 tenure as a military leader was a missed opportunity and that Nigeria may have been spared many years of corruption had his ruthless anti-corruption campaign not been prematurely ended. A professor who worked for the Buhari government in the 1980s once told me that Nigeria “would have been a different country today” had Mr. Buhari’s military regime been allowed to govern for five years rather than the twenty months he ruled before he was overthrown in a palace coup. Many Nigerians who cheered his downfall back then later rued the lurid exposés of government corruption after him, and recalled his era with nostalgia.

However, Buhari’s puritanical streak, iron will, and uncompromising temperament invited opposition. He dissipated the tremendous goodwill that greeted his entrance into government by refusing to compromise his principles and getting into fights with people inside and outside his government, and by trying to impose military discipline on those he governed.

AT: How would you characterize Buhari's relationships with Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha? (Note to readers: Babangida overthrew Buhari in a 1985 coup and ruled until 1993, when he resigned amid a political crisis; Abacha took power in a coup several months later in 1993 and ruled until his death in 1998.)

MS: They have been on-again, off-again friends for over sixty years (in the case of Buhari and Babangida). The three of them had known each other since the 1960s and were friends for twenty years until Abacha and Babangida staged the coup that overthrew Buhari in 1985. This badly damaged the relationship, and it did not begin to thaw until in the 1990s, Abacha (now head of state) appointed Buhari to head the Petroleum Trust Fund in an attempt to use Buhari's reputation for honesty to boost his regime's credibility. Buhari and Babangida are as temperamentally different as two human beings can be. Aging mellowed their antipathy towards each other.

AT: What factors explain Buhari's appeal as an opposition figure from 2003 to 2015? (Note to readers: Buhari was the runner-up in every presidential election from 2003 to 2011, before ultimately winning in 2015.)

MS: After the lurid corruption scandals and insurgencies of the prior decades, a large segment of the electorate wanted a leader who could be simultaneously tough on corruption and security. That said, Buhari's popularity was largely limited to northern Nigeria, until his alliance with Tinubu's south-western based party gave him additional financial and logistical support that he needed in the south to gain enough nationwide votes to be elected president.

AT: How do you assess Buhari's presidency? What were his main achievements and failures from this period?

MS: The electorate were greatly excited when they elected Buhari in 2015 and genuinely thought his presidency would be a fresh start for Nigeria. He was elected primarily for three reasons: to use his military "iron man" image to crush the Boko Haram insurgency, to fight corruption, and because northerners were aggrieved because they felt that Buhari's predecessor President Jonathan (a southerner), reneged on the "gentleman's agreement" to rotate the presidency between Nigeria's north and south. While Buhari degraded Boko Haram's capability, it still exists and new outbursts of insecurity sprang up around the country; including two serious incidents in 2022 during which gunmen attacked a train, killed 10 passengers, abducted 62 others for ransom, and then Boko Haram splinter groups attacked and released nearly 900 prisoners from a high security prison near Nigeria's capital city Abuja (where Buhari lives). Such incidents severely damaged his "Mr Security" image. While his personal integrity has rarely been called into question, he also failed to make serious inroads against corruption.

Just before Buhari was sworn as president in 2015, I predicted that:

"If he launches an all-out anti corruption drive with no sacred cows, his popularity with the electorate will soar, but he will also step on toes powerful enough to trip him up and topple him from power. If he decides to be selective and navigate his war on corruption around powerful vested interests, he may avoid a power struggle, but will erode his credibility with the public."

My prediction was prophetic. He did not go for the "no sacred cows" option, did the latter, and his reputation suffered. Buhari also spoiled the ethno-regional healing at the start of his presidency, with his incredibly lopsided appointments where the vast majority of people who held the most powerful senior political and security positions were northern Muslims. This antagonised many southerners.

AT: How do you think Buhari will be remembered in Nigeria? What kinds of legacies does he leave behind?

MS: It is rare that a Nigerian president leaves office or dies without claims of grandiose corruption hanging over him. In that regard Buhari is in rare company. To some extent Buhari came too early (1984) and too late (2015) for Nigeria. Nigerians have short and brittle political memories. He is loved and has electrifying popularity in north-west Nigeria. Southern Nigerians have mixed views about him. Their short-term cynicism about his presidency will dissipate once they realise that his successors will probably not perform better than him.

AT: Do you think the era of retired generals running as civilian candidates is over for Nigeria for the foreseeable future?

MS: It is unlikely to happen again in the near future. Buhari's presidency was to some extent the sunset of "The Class of 1966."