By RFIPalled on 29-12-2018Modified on 29-12-2018 at 23:08
Former Nigerian President Shehu Shagari, who died of an illness on Friday, was buried Saturday in his home village. The absence of President Muhammadu Buhari, the same who had overthrown him by a putsch in 1983, sparked a controversy on social networks.
Shehu Shagari is one of the few heads of state in Nigeria during the period of military dictatorships to gain supreme power through voting. This Fulani of Muslim faith was born in the north of the country in 1925. He prospered in business before embracing a political career a few years later in front of Finance Minister General Yokubu Gowon.
At 53, this man who has the confidence of the army is elected president in the 1979 elections, supposed to end the military dictatorship that led the country at the time.
Bloody coup
Shehu Shagari then presents himself as a man of integrity and incorruptibility, but his power will not succeed in escaping the bad governance that characterizes successive governments since the country produced black gold. A situation aggravated by the oil crises of the 1970s.
Nigeria will therefore reconnect with its old demons. General Muhammadu Buhari, democratically re-elected in 2015 and currently in power, overthrew Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983 during a bloody coup d'etat.
The president and several of his ministers are arrested for corruption. Shehu Shagari is finally acquitted two years later, but many of her relatives are facing heavy sentences. Since then, the former Nigerian president had been discreet and rarely appeared in public.
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