Halima said that while Nigerians knew him as President Muhammadu Buhari, within the family he was simply “Baba,” stressing that leadership was far more complicated than it appeared from the outside.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter, Halima Buhari, has revealed private struggles her late father faced while in office, saying that the former President was deeply aware of the disappointment many Nigerians felt about his administration.
Halima spoke in Abuja at the Yar’Adua Centre on Wednesday during the public presentation of a book titled “Headlines and Soundbites: Media Moments That Defined an Administration,” authored by former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
According to Nigerian Tribune, addressing an audience that included former ministers, ex-governors, an incumbent governor, traditional rulers, and chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Halima said the former president understood that the high hopes invested in him by Nigerians were not fully met, particularly in the areas of insecurity and economic management.
Speaking from the perspective of someone who witnessed governance from close quarters, she reflected on what she described as the difficult realities of leadership in a complex and diverse country like Nigeria, noting the gulf between idealism and practical governance.
She said, “Behind every soundbite, there was a human being; sometimes tired, sometimes determined, sometimes frustrated, always painfully aware that his decisions impacted millions of lives.
“That human being was our father. I saw a side of him that never appeared on television and was rarely captured in print.
“I saw the man who would sit quietly, listening more than he spoke. The man who worried about the security of ordinary people.”
“The man who agonised over the gap between what was promised and what was possible,” she added.
Halima said that while Nigerians knew him as President Muhammadu Buhari, within the family he was simply “Baba,” stressing that leadership was far more complicated than it appeared from the outside.
“For the public, he was President Buhari. For us at home, he was simply ‘Baba.’ Leadership, especially in a country as complex as Nigeria, is never as straightforward as it looks from the outside.
“It involves trade-offs, compromises, and very often, imperfect choices,” she said.
According to her, the former president was not oblivious to public criticism of his administration and listened attentively to voices of both discontent and appreciation.
“My father was not unaware of the criticism levelled against him. He knew that many Nigerians felt that more would have been done or done differently,” she said.
“He heard the voices of those who were disappointed, just as he heard the gratitude of those who felt their lives had improved.”
She emphasised that the event was not an attempt to impose a single narrative on Buhari’s legacy, acknowledging that debates around his years in office would continue.
“Our presence here today is not to rewrite that history or to insist on a single interpretation of his years in office.
“Nigerians will continue to debate his legacy as they should in a vibrant democracy.
“There will be books that praise, books that criticise, and books that will try to document,” Halima said, adding that Lai Mohammed’s book offered an insider’s perspective on governance and public communication.
“This particular book, written by someone who was in the inner circle of communication and messaging, provides one important perspective of how an administration must be shaped and sometimes challenged in the court of public opinion.”