A BIOGRAPHY BETRAYED: THE SHAMBOLIC AGENDA OF “FROM A SOLDIER TO A STATESMAN“

The pursuit of biography is a sacred historical trust. It demands rigour, balance, and an unwavering commitment to presenting a subject in full—virtues and vices, triumphs, and failures. Dr. Charles Omole’s From a Soldier to a Statesman: The Life and Times of Muhammadu Buhari betrays this trust completely. It is not a biography but a shambolic assemblage of partisan testimony, functioning not to illuminate but to obfuscate. A close examination reveals a work so compromised in its motive, its sources, and its execution that it stands as an intellectual insult rather than a contribution to understanding one of Nigeria’s most consequential figures.

The fundamental failure of Omole’s work is its abandonment of biographical objectivity. Instead of a measured exploration, the book operates as a vehicle for political revisionism. Its apparent motive is not to document but to deify; not to analyze but to advocate. This transforms the project from history into hagiography, seeking to encase President Buhari in an impermeable myth of infallibility. Such an approach does a disservice to history, as it refuses to engage with the complex, often contentious reality of Buhari’s impact across decades of military and democratic rule. By sidestepping legitimate debates over policy, governance, and national unity, the book renders itself irrelevant to any serious discourse.

This fatal flaw is crystallized in the character and selection of the book’s contributors. While their names are real, the narrative they collectively weave is a masterpiece of selective memory. The pages are dominated by a chorus of voices with a clear stake in sustaining a particular political narrative—individuals who can accurately be described as opportunistic, relentlessly partisan, and historically unreliable. Where are the credible neutral observers? The respectful but critical analysts? Their absence is deafening. By relying almost exclusively on testimonies from within a closed circle of loyalists, Omole ensures the book is an echo chamber, not an investigation. This methodology strips the narrative of all credibility, as it is built not on a foundation of evidence but on the pre-fabricated pillars of sycophancy.

Consequently, the book is utterly worthless as a biographical or historical text. It does not befit the Muhammadu Buhari known to the Nigerian nation—a figure of stark contradictions, fierce dedication in the eyes of some, and profound controversy in the eyes of others. To reduce a legacy that has sparked deep national dialogue to a one-dimensional panegyric is an act of profound intellectual dishonesty. The work is a mess: poorly structured, analytically barren, and drowning in its own agenda. It offers no insight to supporters, no enlightenment to critics, and no value to scholars or future generations seeking to understand this era.

In the final analysis, Charles Omole’s From a Soldier to a Statesman is more than just a bad book; it is a betrayal of the biographical craft and an affront to the Nigerian public’s intelligence. It substitutes propaganda for scholarship and hagiography for history. For this deliberate act of intellectual deception, Charles Omole owes Nigerians a sincere apology. He should ask for forgiveness for the insult of presenting such a skewed and shamelessly agenda-driven work as a serious biography. Furthermore, he owes a specific apology to the family of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, for in seeking to create a plaster saint, he has robbed their patriarch of his authentic, complex humanity—the very essence any respectable biography seeks to capture. True legacy is built on truth, not fable. This book, sadly, is a monument to the latter and thus deserves to be dismissed and forgotten.

Hassan Dan Aboki

Kaduna

23 December 2025