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Profile of Nigeria's president-elect Muhammadu Buhari

Xinhua, April 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

Muhammadu Buhari, candidate of Nigeria's opposition All Progressives Congress, was officially declared president-elect Wednesday, the first time in Nigeria's history that a sitting president has been defeated at the polls.

Buhari defeated incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan by a margin of 2.57 million votes in th national polls conducted by Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission last weekend.

Below is his profile:

He is a retired Major General of the Nigerian Army and a fourth time contestant in the presidential race.

The 72 year-old Nigeria politician had unsuccessfully sought votes to be Nigerian president in 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections held in the West African country.

He was head of state of Nigeria for almost two years, having led a military coup d'etat that ended a democratic government in December 1983.

Buhari, a muslim, is a native of the northwestern state of Katsina, and of the Fulani ethnic background.

He joined the Nigerian army in 1961, one year after Nigeria gained independence from its British colonial masters. In the army, he rose through the ranks and attended several military courses in Nigeria and abroad, including the Defense Services Staff College, Wellington, India, and the U.S. Army War College in Pennyslvania.

He served as Military Secretary of the Nigerian Army Headquarters between 1978 and 1979, and was a member of the Nigerian Supreme Military Council in the same period.

A former military governor of Nigeria's North Eastern State, Buhari led social, economic and political improvement in Bauchi, Borno and (defunct) Gongola states.

Buhari, during the presidential campaign, denied his role in the December 1983 coup and clearly explained to Nigerians that as a military leader turned democrat, he was ready to take responsibility for all military actions considered as "undemocratic" or "anti-people". Endi