However, his past also came back to haunt him, including statements in the 1980s that he would bring in sharia law across Nigeria.
"Nigeria shares very cordial relations with Equatorial Guinea".
"Now we say we want our person to be at the top, otherwise we will return to the creeks, and what Nigeria saw before will be child's play".
On the night of 14 April 2014, she was abducted, along with more than 200 other girls from the town of Chibok in north-east Nigeria.
A group of women in brightly coloured hijabs sang in the local dialect: "When Buhari dey for power, Nigeria go better".
According to the New York Times, 30 specialists from the state department, FBI and Pentagon, with medical, intelligence, counter-terrorism and communications expertise, have been sent to Nigeria.
Nigeria has suffered from mediocre leadership for as long as I can remember.
Deschamps claimed to be unaware of those comments and was much more restrained, with the France manager maintaining "it doesn't make sense" to look beyond the Nigeria game.
Countries such as Nigeria have suffered horribly from a terror based on religious extremism that is alien to their society.
Ten days ago, Nigeria said that Boko Haram had agreed to a ceasefire, which would lead to talks on releasing some or all of the Chibok girls.
"Snowden doesn't fully understand that accepting asylum in Russia is about the same as agreeing to receive an inheritance from a lawyer in Nigeria by email," Feigin tweeted Thursday.
