Tinubu, Ex Niger President, Issoufou, Others to Grace Launch of Buhari’s Authorised Biography Nov 19

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

President Bola Tinubu and former President of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, among other dignitaries would grace the public presentation of late President Muhammadu Buhari’s authorised biography on November 19 in Abuja.

The Chairman, Planning Committee and former Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, gave the hint while addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said the three-volume study of the life, public service and historical record of the late president was authored by Dr. Udu Yakubu.

Adamu stated categorically that the presentation is not meant to be a political rally, but a serious national moment for history, memory and leadership.

He stated: “We are approaching an important moment in the documentation of Nigeria’s contemporary history.

“The public presentation is intended as a serious national occasion around history, memory, leadership, public service and the continuing responsibility of one generation to place before the next a reliable record of the people and events that shaped its time.”

Adamu noted that Buhari’s place in Nigerian history is unusual, adding that his public life spanned more than half a century and crossed military and civilian eras, triumph and detention, opposition and power.

He stressed that Buhari was a soldier and military commander, a military governor, a federal commissioner, a military Head of State, a political detainee, a serial presidential candidate, an opposition leader, and a democratically elected president who served two terms from 2015 to 2023.

Adamu said: “Few Nigerian public figures have experienced so many reversals of fortune, or returned so repeatedly to the centre of national affairs.

“For over 50 years, his name never left the national conversation. He inspired loyalty and resistance, admiration and criticism in equal measure.

“To tell the story of Muhammadu Buhari is inevitably to enter into the larger story of Nigeria itself. That is why this biography is important.”

The minister explained that the three volumes covered his origin, formation, military career, rise to national prominence, years as Head of State, political isolation, and the long road through opposition politics to the historic victory of 2015.

Adamu explained that the book also covers his eight years in power, 2015 to 2023 — the administration, the key personalities, the policies, the crises, the promises, the achievements claimed, the disappointments and the controversies of democratic governance.

While the third volume, Adamu stated, covered thematic assessment beyond chronology — economy, security, infrastructure, foreign affairs, anti-corruption, institutional reform, social policy and the larger questions that will define Buhari’s place in history.

He added: “The project was authorised by Buhari himself. Dr Yakubu and the May Publishing team spent a prolonged period on extensive research, interviewing people who knew Buhari at different stages of his life and those who participated directly in the institutions and events examined.

“Official records, published sources, personal recollections, speeches, reports and other documentary materials were brought into the work.”

Also speaking, the author said he didn’t present these volumes as the final words of  Buhari.

He noted that the work is the result of more than two years of sustained research, interviewing, writing, editing, checking and revision — but its real beginnings reach much further back.

Yakubu described the moment when a work that lived for years in conversations, recordings, documents, archives, drafts and revisions must leave the privacy of its making and enter the public domain.

Buhari’s public life, he said, crossed military and democratic eras, war and reconstruction, petroleum prosperity and economic crisis, military rule and democratic contest, opposition politics and presidential power.

Yakubu added: “To one generation, he was a young military officer. To another, the military Head of State of 1983-85, austere, severe and controversial. To another, the persistent opposition candidate who refused to disappear after repeated defeat. And to millions of younger Nigerians, he became principally the civilian president who governed from 2015 to 2023.

“All these Buharis belonged to the same life. The challenge was to understand how.

“The titles were deliberate. The Phenomenon speaks to Buhari’s extraordinary persistence. The Presidency moves from the pursuit of power to the consequences of possessing it. The Reckoning recognises that every public life eventually reaches the point where intention, action, consequence and historical judgement must confront one another.”

Yakubu said while the Book was authorised by Buhari himself, it was not controlled.

He said: “The work was authorised by President Buhari. That authorisation opened doors. It enabled access to people, recollections and documentary trails that would otherwise have been difficult to reach. But authorisation did not mean surrendering judgement.

“The subject has had his voice in the biography, while the biographer has had or retained his independence.”

That independence, Yakubu said, was particularly important because few Nigerian leaders have attracted such divided interpretations.

According to him, “For some, he represented discipline, restraint and incorruptibility. For others, rigidity, economic misjudgement and political insensitivity.

“The work of biography lies between those positions. My task was not to decide in advance which Buhari should survive. It was to recover as much of the life as possible and allow evidence, chronology, circumstance and consequence to do their work.”

The author lamented that Nigeria has lost too much history because the people who made it departed without recording what they knew.

He said: “Participants die. Personal papers disappear. Institutions forget. Memories harden into partisan narratives. The biographer works in that narrowing space before memory becomes irrecoverable.

“So this is not simply a book about Muhammadu Buhari. It is also an argument for the serious preservation of Nigerian lives, institutions and national memory.”