These steps worked for me on several Systems using MariaDB.

log into MYSQL as root

mysql -u root

Create new user (admin) and Grant privileges. To a new user execute:

CREATE USER 'admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'admin'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

exit

service mysql restart

root@:/home/uferes# vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/phpmyadmin.conf

Alias /phpmyadmin2  /var/www/html/phpmyadmin2

AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

Header set Cache-Control: "private, pre-check=0, post-check=0, max-age=0"
Header set Expires: 0
Header set Pragma: no-cache

Require all granted
AllowOverride all
Options +FollowSymLinks

Compare a imagem abaixo uma vez que o wordpress troca os caracteres.
ATENCAO: Debian eu tive que retirar a linha 4 onde fala: php_value magic_quotes_gpc off