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My husband might have lived if I was in control – Aisha Buhari
For Aisha Buhari, Nigeria’s former First Lady, her husband could probably be alive today, were she fully in charge of managing his health instead of those who took charge at the Presidential Villa, that succeeded in convincing the late President that she was a threat to him.
Her narrative came in new book, where she detailed stories of intrigues within the Presidency leading to a situation, where the former President began locking his room following gossips that she planned to kill him.
Recalling the incident that occurred ahead of his ill-health, which saw the late President, spending a whole 153 days in the hospital in London, the widow, traced the health crisis to the same intrigues, which denied her access to her husband’s affairs, leading to a broken feeding routine and mismanaged nutrition, she had earlier planned and supervised.
Dismissing the contention that Buhari’s illness was a mysterious or poisoning, she said in the new 600-page biography, From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari, authored by Charles Omole, a Lawyer, Security consultant, Trainer and Strategist to businesses and governments across Europe launched at the State House on Monday.
The 22-chapter book, which chronicles the late President’s early life in Daura, Katsina state, until his final hours in a London hospital in mid-July 2025, narrated how the First Lady, had long supervised her husband’s meals and supplements at specific hours, a regimen she said helped “a slender man with a long history of malnutrition symptoms” maintain strength.
Part of the book read: “Elderly bodies require gentle, consistent support,” she recalled, adding, “He doesn’t have a chronic illness. Keep him on schedule. According to Aisha Buhari, her husband’s 2017 health crisis did not originate as a mysterious ailment or a covert plot. It started, she says, with the loss of a routine; ‘my nutrition,’ she describes it, a pattern of meals and supplements she had long overseen in Kaduna before they moved into Aso Villa.”
Stating how the former First Lady convened a meeting with close staff, including the physician, Suhayb Rafindadi; the CSO, Bashir Abubakar; the housekeeper, and the SSS DG to explain the plan, it added: “Daily, cups and bowls with tailored vitamin powders and oils, a touch of protein here, a change to cereals there.
“When the Presidency’s machinery took over our private lives, she explained the plan: daily, at specific hours, cups and bowls with tailored vitamin powders and oil, a touch of protein here, a change to cereals there. Elderly bodies require gentle, consistent support.
“Then came the gossip and the fearmongering. They said I wanted to kill him. My husband believed them for a week or so. The President began locking his room, changed small habits, and crucially, meals were delayed or missed; the supplements were stopped. For a year, he did not have lunch. They mismanaged his meals.”
The deterioration culminated in Buhari’s two extended medical trips to the United Kingdom, totalling 154 days in 2017, during which he ceded authority to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
“Upon return, he admitted to being ‘never so ill’ and having received blood transfusions. Buhari’s absences sparked rumours, speculation, and even conspiracy theories,” Omole wrote, adding that the former First Lady, debunked stories of plots to poison her husband.
“Her contention, is that loss of a routine, ‘my nutrition,’ was the genesis of the crisis. In London, doctors prescribed an even stronger regimen of supplements. Initially, Buhari was frightened and not taking them as prescribed. So she took charge of his welfare, slipping hospital-issued supplements into his juice and oats.
“The former First Lady described the turnaround as swift, noting, ‘After just three days, he threw away the stick he was walking with. After a week, he was receiving relatives. That, she says, ‘was the genesis, and also the reversal of his sickness.”
The author, added: “Critics said Buhari’s reliance on UK hospitals exposed the failure of Nigeria’s health system. A more compassionate perspective, recognises that a man in his 70s may require specialised care not readily available in Nigeria after decades of underinvestment. Buhari’s habit of handing power to his deputy during absences, ensured institutional propriety, even during personal health crises.”
The book also revealed a climate of mistrust around the Presidency, referring to how the First Lady, alleged to surveillance, the bugging of the President’s office with listening devices and playback of private conversations, saying, fear and conscience “contributed to taking his life.”
She refuted the long-held rumour that Buhari had a body double, popularly known as “Jibril of Sudan,” as absurd, arguing that poor strategic communication in government allowed simple, banal developments to metastasise into conspiracies.
The echoes of the drums rolled out to celebrate the rescue of the 44 teachers and students, kidnapped from some schools in Oyo State, after 56 days in the bush, would surely be disrupted abruptly, with the divergent echoes of a fresh abduction, this time coming from Kogi State.
Reports indicate that the gunmen, struck on Tuesday at the Government Secondary School, Odo-Ekina, in Dekina Local Government Area of the state, abducting four students, the school principal and a National Examinations Council (NECO) ad hoc staff member.
Authorities of the Kogi State Police Command, who immediately unleashed their operatives in hot pursuit of the abductors, said the attack occurred at about 5:25 p.m. while the students were writing their NECO examination.
Saliu Oyiza Afusat, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and spokesman of the command, said a combined team of police personnel and other security agencies has launched a search-and-rescue operation following the incident.
Informing that one of the students was actually rescued immediately, she said efforts were ongoing to secure the release of the remaining victims and apprehend the attackers, adding that Naziru Bello Kankarofi, the state Commissioner of Police, alongside the Brigade Commander and the State Security Adviser to the Governor, Commodore Jerry Omodara (Rtd), were already on the way to the scene for an on-the-spot assessment.
Oil prices are expected to go down now with the announcement of Donald Trump, US President that he will no longer impose a 20 percent “safe passage” fee on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The POTUS, hinged his reversal of the decision on the intervention from some Gulf countries, who pleaded with him not to toe the line due to the massive economic impact the decision would make on the region.
Indeed, oil prices had shot up immediately Trump announced the new levy on Monday while declaring the US ‘the guardians of the Hormuz strait,’ a measure which he said was to pay for the cost of guarding the volatile area in order keep supply of oil flowing.
Reports said that Gulf allies of the US worked frantically to get Trump on the phone in time to talk him out of the idea altogether, while a flurry of appeals came from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar.
In response, the POTUS, posting on his Truth Social platform, wrote: “Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.”
Trump, who said the investments would be “MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” added that the deals would see factories, plants, and equipment pour into the US at “Historic levels.”
The Gulf nations have committed to invest trillions of dollars in the US, though it remains unclear how much of that they will actually spend over the next several years.
Meanwhile, the US continues to bomb Iran in what appears to be a resumption of active conflict between both countries, despite an ongoing roadmap to end the conflict.
Reports say operatives of the Osun State Police Command, and those of the Department of State Services (DSS) had tracking the trail of Adeniyi Adeyemi, controversial Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), for weeks, before he was eventually pulled out of his hole on Tuesday.
However, the duo, were said to have pulled back after failing to track him through his mobile phones, which he had reportedly switched off for about two days, making it difficult to locate him, leaving the stage for the members of the Police Intelligence Response Team (PI-RT) led by Moses Lohor, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP).
Lohor, said to have previously served as the Commander of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad of Osun State, and reported to have been involved in high-profile security operations and controversies, after taken over fielded his men to pick up signals from their well-oiled signal networks.
Regarded by many Osun residents as one of the key security officers who contributed significantly to the peace and stability enjoyed in Ilesa and other parts of the state during his tenure, he was said to have relied on his contacts before his transfer out of the state, said to have raised concerns from the public about the security situation he would be leaving behind.
His exit from the state was said to be hinged on an incident in 2024, in which he allegedly shot one Iyanda Alowonle, then Chairman of Osun State Motor Transport System, in the stomach at the police station in the state prompting an order for his arrest by then Inspector General of Police (IGP).
His effort was said to have paid off when he successfully tracked down the controversial PFIPC, boss, who was seen on Tuesday evening, in a shot video on social media undergoing interrogation, and eventually handed him over to Ibrahim Gotan, Commissioner of Police in the state.
The PUNCH quoted one of the sources as saying: “The arrest (of Adeyemi) took place on Tuesday morning by the IRT squad, who immediately moved him to Abuja. After he was arrested, he was taken to Ibadan and from there to Abuja.”
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