Nigeria, July 18 -- I met him several times after he became Nigeria's president in 2015, but the meetings did not change my impression of him as an enigma. Yet, as history peels back layer after layer of Muhammadu Buhari's place, we may discover the essence of his beguiling simplicity.

Tight-lipped and taciturn, a soldier in bearing and character, his life was marked by complex dimensions that shaped his political and personal trajectory.

Escape Route

Born on 17 December, 1942, in Daura, northwest Nigeria, in a region now fraught with banditry and violent crimes, Buhari began his military career by joining the Nigerian Army in 1961. In a viral video, Buhari told his interviewer and former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy,...