Full Biography of the GCFR of Nigeria Gen. Muhammadu Buhari

Muhammadu Buhari GCFR (born 17 December 1942) is the President of Nigeria , in office since 2015. He is a retired major general in the Nigerian Army and previously served as the nation's head of state from 31 December 1983 to 27 August 1985, after taking power in a military coup d'état.

(Early life)
Muhammadu Buhari was born to a Fulani family on 17 December 1942, in Daura , Katsina State, to his father Adamu and mother Zulaihat.  He is the twenty-third child of his father. Buhari was raised by his mother, after his father died when he was about four years old.
He attended primary school in Daura and Mai'adua before proceeding to Katsina Model School in 1953, and to Katsina Provincial Secondary School (now Government College Katsina) from 1956 to 1961.
Early military career
Buhari joined the Nigerian Army by enrolling at age 19 Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC) in 1961. In February 1964, the college was upgraded to an officer commissioning unit of the
Nigerian Army and renamed the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) (prior to 1964, the Nigerian government sent cadets who had completed their NMTC preliminary training to mostly
Commonwealth military academies for officer cadet training). From 1962 to 1963, Buhari underwent officer cadet training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot in England.
In January 1963,at age 21, Buhari was commissioned a second lieutenant and appointed
Platoon Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion in Abeokuta , Nigeria . From November 1963 to January 1964, Buhari attended the Platoon Commanders' Course at the Nigerian Military Training College, Kaduna . In 1964, he facilitated his military training by attending the Mechanical Transport Officer's Course at the Army Mechanical Transport School in Borden, United Kingdom.
From 1965 to 1967, Buhari served as commander of the Second Infantry Battalion and appointed
brigade major , Second Sector, First Infantry Division, April 1967 to July 1967.
Northern counter-coup of 28 July 1966
In July 1966 Lieutenant Muhammadu Buhari was one of the participants in the "July Rematch" or so called "Counter-Coup" , led by Lt-Col Murtala Muhammed , that overthrew and assassinated Nigeria's first self-appointed military Head of State General Aguiyi Ironsi, who had assumed leadership of the Nigerian government after a failed coup attempt on 15 January 1966 , which overthrew the elected parliamentary government of Nigeria (also known as first republic). Other participants in the
coup on 28 July 1966 included 2nd Lieutenant Sani Abacha, Lieutenant Ibrahim Babangida , Major
Theophilus Danjuma, Lieutenant Ibrahim Bako among others. The coup was a reaction to the
January coup where a group of mostly Igbo officers led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa . Many Northern soldiers were aggrieved by the murder of senior politicians, Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa , northern regional premier,
Ahmadu Bello , and four senior officers from northern Nigeria: Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, Colonel Kur Mohammed, Lt-Cols Abogo Largema and James Pam. The counter-coup was very bloody leading to the murder of mostly Igbo officers. Among the casualties were the first military head of state General Aguiyi Ironsi and Lt Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, the military governor of the Western Region.
Buhari was assigned to the 1st Division under the command of Lt. Col Mohammed Shuwa , the division had temporarily moved from Kaduna to
Makurdi at the onset of the Nigerian Civil War . The 1st division was divided into sectors and then battalions with Shuwa assisted by sector commanders Martin Adamu and Sule Apollo who was later replaced by Theophilus Danjuma. Buhari's initial assignment was as Adjutant and
Company Commander 2 battalion unit, Second Sector Infantry of the 1st Division. The 2 battalion was one of the units that participated in the first actions of the war, they started from Gakem near
Afikpo and moved towards Ogoja with support from Gado Nasko 's artillery squad. They reached and captured Ogoja within a week with the intention of advancing through the flanks to
Enugu, the rebel capital. Buhari was briefly the 2 battalion's Commander and led the battalion to Afikpo to link with the 3rd Marine Commando and advance towards Enugu through Nkalagu and
Abakaliki. However, before the move to Enugu, he was posted to Nsukka as Brigade Major of the 3rd Infantry Brigade under Joshua Gin who would later become battle fatigued and replaced by Isa Bukar. Buhari stayed with the infantry for a few months as the Nigerian army began to adjust tactics learnt from early battle experiences. Instead of swift advances, the new tactics involved securing and holding on to the lines of communications and using captured towns as training ground to train new recruits brought in from the army depots in Abeokuta and Zaria. In 1968, he was posted to the 4 Sector also called the Awka sector which was charged to take over the capture of Onitsha from Division 2. The sector's operations was within the
Awka-Abagana -Onitsha region which was important to Biafran forces because it was a major source of food supply. It was in the sector that Buhari's group suffered a lot of casualties trying to protect food supplies route of the rebels along Oji River and Abagana.
From 1970 to 1971, Buhari was Brigade Major/Commandant, Thirty-first Infantry Brigade. He then served as the Assistant Adjutant-General, First Infantry Division Headquarters, from 1971 to 1972. He also attended the Defence Services Staff College , Wellington, India, in 1973.
From 1974 to 1975 Buhari was Acting Director of Transport and Supply at the Nigerian Army Corps of Supply and Transport Headquarters.
Buhari's participation in July 1975 coup
Then Lieutenant Colonel Buhari was among a group of officers (led by Colonels Ibrahim Taiwo , Joseph Garba , Abdulahi Mohammed,
Anthony Ochefu , Lieutenant Colonels Shehu Musa Yar'Adua , Ibrahim Babangida and Alfred Aduloju ) who overthrew the Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon.
In March 1976, the Head of State, General
Olusegun Obasanjo, appointed Buhari as the Federal Commissioner (position now called Minister) for Petroleum and Natural Resources. When the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was created in 1977, Buhari was also appointed as its Chairman, a position he held until 1978. During his tenure as Commissioner, 2.8 billion Naira allegedly went missing from the accounts of the NNPC in Midlands Bank in the United Kingdom. Former President Ibrahim Babangida allegedly accused Buhari of being responsible for this fraud.
However, in the conclusion of the Crude Oil Sales Tribunal of Inquiry headed by Justice Ayo Irikefe to investigate allegations of N2.8 billion misappropriation from the NNPC account. The tribunal found no truth in the allegations even though it noticed some lapses in the NNPC accounts.
During Buhari's tenure as the Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources, the government invested in pipelines and petroleum storage infrastructures. The government built about 21 petroleum storage depots all over the country from Lagos to Maidugiuri and from Calabar to Gusau; the administration constructed a pipeline network that connected Bonny terminal and the Port Harcourt refinery to the depots. Also, the administration signed the contract for the construction of a refinery in Kaduna and an oil pipeline that will connect the Escravos oil terminal to Warri Refinery and the proposed Kaduna refinery.
In 1983, when Chadian forces invaded Nigeria in the Borno State, Buhari used the forces under his command to chase them out of the country, crossing into Chadian territory in spite of an order given by President Shagari to withdraw.  This 1983 Chadian military affair led to more than 100 victims and "prisoners of war".
He unsuccessfully ran for the office of president in the 2003 , 2007 and 2011 general elections. In December 2014, he emerged as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the
March 2015 general elections. Buhari won the election, defeating the incumbent President
Goodluck Jonathan. This marked the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate in a general election. He was sworn in on 29 May 2015.
Buhari has stated that he takes responsibility for anything over which he presided during his military rule, and that he cannot change the past. He has described himself as a "converted democrat".