On Sunday, July 13, 2025, the immediate past president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, died in London, following a prolonged illness. By Tuesday, he was back in Nigeria — or at least, his body was. He was buried in Daura, his hometown, with full state honours and efficient logistics that would make even the Ministry of Works proud.
While I may be young, I’ve witnessed the burial of at least four Nigerian presidents: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (2010), Shehu Shagari (2018), Ernest Shonekan (2022) and now, Muhammadu Buhari (2025). All northern. All Muslim. All buried swiftly. But not all the burials were equally celebrated, especially in Nigeria, where politics doesn’t end at the grave. One might wonder why Shehu Shagari’s burial was not as well-celebrated as others, but I suppose he didn’t follow the rules, even in death. So, for the living (former or present), here are the rules:
Rule One: Die Abroad, Preferably in London
There’s no prestige in dying in Gwarimpa General Hospital. If you want a proper state burial, the type that pauses governance for 48 hours and halts businesses in the name of a public holiday, you must die abroad — ideally in London. That’s where the real state funerals begin. The mystery of flying out sick and returning only in a body bag allows the state to control the story. Death becomes diplomacy. Buhari played the script well, diverting from the path of Yar’Adua, who came back (from a foreign hospital bed) alive. They both departed the public stage in vague medical circumstances, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and millions of dollars in foreign hospital bills. If nothing else, it thickens the plot and keeps the conspiracy theorists employed.
Rule Two: Return to the Ancestral Soil
To be buried well, you must die a national figure and be buried as a local hero. Buhari’s body went to Daura. Yar’Adua’s to Katsina, both received by a sitting President, while Shagari was also buried in Sokoto, in the absence of the President. This return-to-roots model is a cultural standard in northern Nigeria, where Islamic rites dictate that the body must be buried swiftly, and preferably in ancestral soil. It brings closure to the people, even if not to the nation. It leaves a sense of cordiality as your kinsmen can line up on the street and bid you farewell for the last time.
But it also exposes the political contradictions: men who ruled the nation from Aso Rock are, in the end, laid to rest not in a national cemetery, but in the modest yards of their hometowns, in holes dug by ordinary men, who could not come close to them while they were in power. National leaders. Local farewells.
Rule Three: Make it a State Project
Buhari’s burial came with state decorum: aircraft, dignitaries, televised prayers, security convoys, military salute, gunshots and tributes from governors who once held grudges. Even political opponents turned up, dressed in solemn agbadas, ready for the cameras.
Compare this to Shehu Shagari’s burial in 2018, where the Sokoto-born former president was buried in a modest affair that sparked national debate. Despite being Nigeria’s first democratically elected president, Shagari was not accorded a full state burial because Buhari did not care. Unlike Jonathan and Tinubu, who made Yar’adua and Buhari’s burial a state project, Buhari didn’t because he was not scrambling for re-election and did not desperately need the dead (former) President’s region’s vote. Shagari’s family expressed disappointment, lamenting that the federal government failed to honour his legacy properly. No national monument. No week-long mourning. Just a quiet return to Sokoto and a burial wrapped in simplicity, which many described as too simple for a former president and starkly below Buhari’s standard. The translation is that in Nigeria, dying in office or as a “controversial reformer” may guarantee more spectacle than being a gentle democrat ousted by a coup.
Rule Four: Bury Fast, Debate Later
The key to managing public opinion is speed. Buhari’s body arrived on Tuesday, and by evening, he was buried. This is not only religiously expedient, it’s politically smart and well calculated. The faster you bury, the fewer questions you answer. No one would care to ask why you were flown in a presidential jet or why government functions were grounded to honour your body.
In contrast, Shehu Shagari’s burial did not linger in public consciousness for weeks. The conversation wasn’t about legacy, but about whether the man who led Nigeria’s Second Republic deserved more. His family thought so. Many Nigerians agreed. However, the then-president, who is now late too and coincidentally overthrew him in December 1983, disagrees. He is no longer alive to see how he should have buried Shagari.
Rule Five: Let Social Media Decide How To Grieve
Forget national monuments, the real national mourning happens online. On Twitter (or X, if you insist), Nigerians held parallel burials: some mourned, others mocked. Some remembered Buhari’s anti-corruption mantras; others remembered the naira at ₦1,800 to a dollar. The man died, but his presidency was resurrected in the form of memes, hot takes, and debate threads. Some believed all the bad he did should be forgotten, in accordance with Islamic teachings. Others disagreed, while counting their loss and the hardship caused by policies such as the naira redesign.
In the digital graveyard, no one is safe. Shehu Shagari trended only after his family’s complaints. Yar’Adua is remembered with nostalgia, a soft-focus president. Buhari? He remains polarising, as much in death as in life.
Rule Six: See No Evil, Speak No Evil
If you leave office with your hands clean and legacy intact (not because evil practices like corruption weren’t rampant, but because you managed to keep them away from public view), your burial might be too boring. Nigeria rewards complication. Yar’Adua won in one of the most controversial electoral processes (which he acknowledged) and had a prolonged health crisis that led to a constitutional crisis. Buhari’s tenure was riddled with insecurity, economic troubles, and an aloof leadership style. That tension made their burial politically useful, an opportunity for leaders to reframe history and reset narratives.
Shagari, on the other hand, was overthrown, quiet in retirement, and scandal-free. His death didn’t offer enough drama for headlines. And in Nigeria, no drama means no dignitaries.
Rule Seven: Your Legacy Depends On How Active Your Aides Are, After You’re Gone
In the end, to bury a president in Nigeria is to curate a story. It’s not about what he did; it’s about what can be said about him, now that he’s no longer around to object. Yar’Adua was buried as a peacemaker and patriot. Shagari as a forgotten elder statesman. Buhari, though divisive, has been packaged as a disciplined nationalist — a strongman misunderstood in his own time. His burial marked another period of reinvention, all thanks to his media aides who didn’t retire while he was six feet gone. New images were released, apology videos, audios and texts were circulated, and several reforms he intended to implement were mentioned.
Final Thought
To bury a president well in Nigeria, you need more than death. You need timing, legacy control, state logistics, and cultural choreography. But to bury a president poorly, just be too simple, too silent, too honest in your time.
May we all die with the right amount of controversy.
