I Was Drugged, Shackled, and Silenced – By My Own Brothers in Uniform ,A True-Life Story from General Muhammadu Buhari

I’ve been betrayed before but never like this.

The day they overthrew me, I did not scream. I did not beg. But I felt something inside me die. It wasn’t just a coup they came for my integrity, my convictions, my soul.

Let me take you back to the morning of **August 27, 1985**. I was Nigeria’s Head of State, a position I didn’t chase or crave. I had taken power after years of watching politicians bleed this country dry. Corruption was not a headline it was our everyday reality.

When I became Head of State in 1983, I made enemies. Not thieves in disguise but men in uniform, men like me. Because I told them, “We cannot rule this country by stealing it.”

I ordered the arrest of powerful ministers. I put looters on trial. I made laws that shook the foundation of the privileged. They smiled in front of me but behind closed doors, they sharpened their knives. Then it happened.

That fateful morning, soldiers stormed my residence. These were not strangers they were my brothers-in-arms. They didn’t knock. They didn’t explain. They drugged me. Dragged me and stripped me of power and dignity in a matter of hours.

I remember waking up groggy, my wrists shackled. I asked one of the guards, “What is happening?”He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

I was flown out of Lagos like a criminal, locked away in a house in Benin. No trial. No charges. Just silence.

For **40 months**, I was detained like an animal, I wasn’t allowed to see my wife, I even missed the birth of my child . That point in my life was one of the most challenging .

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like it was the end for you ?

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