The Unconnected Dots about the Death of Former President Muhammadu Buhari

”Nigerians for instance can imagine the length the Northerners can go to protect the mandate of the former president Muhammadu Buhari should he have actually died in 2017, going by the bitter experience they had when the former president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died in office on May 5, 2010, leading to the assumption of power by the former president Goodluck Jonathan on May 6, 2010, who was his vice president.”

“Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don’t go to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Learn from other’s mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself”- Hyman Rickover

It is instructive when it is said that the best questions are those that are asked. However, the answers to the questions asked can either be enlightening or misleading, depending on where or from whom they are coming. As Nigerians in particular, and the world at large mourn over the loss of the highly respected immediate former president of Nigeria General Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, who was reported to have died on Sunday July 13, 2025, at a London clinic, to Nigerians the announcement of his passing on as shocking as it was, on one hand, did on the other hand arouse in the people the earlier consumed news of the unsubstantiated death of former president Muhammadu Buhari since as far back as 2017. The rumour then was so strong and flew everywhere both locally and internationally especially on social media with no dissenting voice from either the federal government of Nigeria or the immediate family of the former president to debunk the claim. Consequent upon the obvious indifference from those that were mostly concerned, other speculations came to the fore to buttress the claim including comparison of the physical features of the person Nigerians considered as the impostor and the real former president Muhammadu Buhari whom they believed was gone.

The apparent absence of the wife of the former president and the former first lady of Nigeria and the revelation of her residence in Dubai for most part of the Eight years tenure of the former president seemed to have lent credence to the claim. In addition, the laid back and the aloof style of leadership of the former president throughout his first and second term as president, a man who many Nigerians celebrated and believed in to be a no-nonsense and action leader, going by his antecedence as the former military Head of State, and one of the reasons why Nigerians voted for him and made him the first opposition leader to defeat the incumbent president, also reduced his credibility in the minds of Nigerians and also served to buttress or invigorate the claim of him not being the real person in charge. The list of the associating factors in support of the belief of Nigerians in respect of having lost their highly revered former president Muhammadu Buhari since 2017 and his replacement by an impostor whose name they had as Jubril and believed to have come from Sudan is inexhaustive. Nonetheless, the submission of the former minister of foreign affairs to the former president Muhammadu Buhari, Geoffery Onyeama on Arise TV special coverage on the life and times of former president Muhammadu Buhari presented by Charles Aniagolu, on Sunday July 13, regarding the question that he asked his boss on his returned from London after his long absence on health ground was alarming. In his words, he said he asked the former president Muhammadu Buhari what they gave him in the London hospital that made him look amazingly different both physically and mentally, that he also would want to have that same thing.

Recall also, that the late former president Muhammadu Buhari maintained his perfect health both physically and mentally as many attested to throughout the remaining part of his first and second term in office not falling sick at all at least to the best knowledge of Nigerians. This was why most Nigerians were in shocked when they learnt about his death and especially at a time when the political landscape of Nigeria was turbulent and heading for a rocky shore. So many unanswered questions are still hanging in the balance in Nigeria with no hope of whether Nigerians will ever get answers to them. Just as it took the former military Head of State General Ibrahim Babagida, who annulled the June 12 election in 1993, thirty-two years before coming to openly declare in public that it was late MKO Abiola that won the election, the truth that Nigerians knew and held onto since the day the election was annulled, so many other questions of national importance may not find answers to them throughout our lifetime. Some of these questions include; who killed Dele Giwa, did the former president Muhammadu Buhari actually die in 2017, why did the administration of the former president Muhammadu Buhari get the Boko Haram abductors of the 110 Dapchi school girls kidnapped on 19 February, 2015, to return all the girls they abducted except Leah Sharibu who refused to renounce her Christian faith, and why did the same government not secure the release of the 276 Chibok girls abducted on 14-15 April, 2014 by the same Boko Haram insurgent during the reign of former president Goodluck Jonathan, why did the sponsors of Boko Haram that Air Commodore Kunle Olawunmi Rtd, said on National TV were in the government of former president Muhammadu Buhari not arrested and prosecuted, did president Bola Ahmed Tinubu actually win the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria, and what ailment did the former late president Muhammadu Buhari die off. The list of these national questions cannot be exhausted.

Nigerians for instance can imagine the length the Northerners can go to protect the mandate of the former president Muhammadu Buhari should he have actually died in 2017, going by the bitter experience they had when the former president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died in office on May 5, 2010, leading to the assumption of power by the former president Goodluck Jonathan on May 6, 2010, who was his vice president. Recall also, the gang up that led to the removal of former president Goodluck Jonathan by the Northerners in 2015 ushering the reign of the late former president Muhammadu Buhari. Nigerians are desperately waiting for answers to the burning questions that agitate their minds especially the one that has to do with the reasons why the late former president publicly apologized to Nigerians and begged for forgiveness at least twice and why his widow and former first lady Aisha declared that each time she was with the late former president he was always begging her to apologize to Nigerians and beg them on his behalf. Who connects the dots is the question on the lips of Nigerians. Nigerians are not ignorant of the fact that the family of a deceased person can decide to keep their dead relative in the mortuary for as long as they want and the case of the former late president Muhammadu Buhari cannot be an exception.

Late Former President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua

On a final note, our hearts go to the immediate family members of the Late president Muhammadu Buhari and our condolences to all Nigerians, even as we pray for the repose of the soul of our dear former president Muhammadu Buhari. God bless Nigeria.

By Samuel Tunji Adeyanju

CEO, Giantability Media Network, USA