I Didn’t Know My Father, I Was An Orphan – Buhari Reveals

President Muhammad Buhari announced that he had been an orphan since childhood and never knew his father.

At an APC election rally in Damaturu, Yobe state, on Tuesday, January 10, the president said he did not know who his father was and spent nine years in boarding schools to obtain the purchase of an education that would enable him to be enlisted in the Nigerian Army.

Addressing the crowd in Hausa, Buhari said: “Make sure you send your children to school and make them understand that whatever you have in this world can be taken away from you except the knowledge you have in your head.”

He added: ‘”I was an orphan; I did not know my father. I spent nine years in a boarding school and because of my education; I was enlisted into the Nigerian Army.”

He continued: “I want you to strengthen your faith, try your best to uphold the children and family God has entrusted to you. Do not betray that trust.”

It’s a strange thing, becoming an orphan at an early age. To lose your family long before you’ve had time to create your own to replace it. It’s a very specific sort of loneliness.