The remains of former President Muhammadu Buhari has departed London in the United Kingdom for Daura, Katsina State, ahead of a state burial in the honour of the late ex-Nigerian leader. The body of the late president was conveyed on a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) craft on Tuesday before 8am.
Vice President Kashim Shettima and the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, and other top government officials accompanied the body of the late former president.
Buhari passed on on Sunday, July 13, 2025, in a London hospital, at about 4.30 pm, following a prolonged illness, though the nature of the illness was not disclosed. He was 82.
President Bola Tinubu is expected to receive the body of the late president in Katsina by Tuesday noon. Already, the Federal Government has declared Tuesday, July 15, 2025 a public holiday for the state burial of the former Nigerian leader in his rustic and agrarian hometown of Daura.
Buhari, whose ramrod-straight posture was admired by many, hailed from Daura, Katsina State, in Nigeria’s North-West zone. He served as the country’s military head of state between January 1984 and August 1985.Known as ‘Baba Buhari’ on the streets of northern Nigeria where he enjoyed an unparallel, cult-like following, the late president was a political force that many of his colleagues couldn’t disregard. With the country’s return to democracy in 1999, Buhari contested for president in 2003, 2007 and 2011 but he lost despite having 12 million votes in each of the elections.
In 2013, his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) joined forces with Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), some factions of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to birth the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In the 2015 election, riding on their ‘Change’ mantra, Buhari with his running mate Yemi Osinbajo ousted then-incumbent Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP and got themselves the much-coveted Aso Villa spot. Both Buhari and Osinbajo were sworn in on May 29, 2015 and returned elected on May 29, 2019. Their victory was the first time in the Fourth Republic that an opposition defeated an incumbent president and the party in power. Both men handed over to their partymen Tinubu and Shettima on May 29, 2023.
Buhari championed an anti-corruption war but his eight-year administration was fraught with some of the nation’s biggest sleaze involving his appointees. There were also claims by some of his appointees that he didn’t exercise his oversight duty upon their activities but his spokesman Garba Shehu and other allies of the late president faulted these claims.