Former First Lady Aisha Buhari has described how her late husband, President Muhammadu Buhari, “began locking his room” when rumours circulated in Aso Rock that she intended to murder him.
The former First Lady added that a disrupted eating schedule and poor nutrition management were the root causes of the health issue that required Buhari to take 154 days of medical vacation in 2017.
She maintained that Buhari’s illness was neither poisoning nor an enigmatic condition.
Her account of the health crisis appeared in a new 600-page biography, ’From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari’, authored by Dr. Charles Omole, launched at the State House on Monday.
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His early life in Daura, Katsina state, and his last hours in a London hospital in mid-July 2025 are chronicled in this 22-chapter book.
The book claims that Aisha Buhari had long kept an eye on her husband’s meals and supplements at particular times. She said that this routine allowed “a slender man with a long history of malnutrition symptoms” stay strong.
“Elderly bodies require gentle, consistent support,” she recalled, adding, “He doesn’t have a chronic illness. Keep him on schedule.”
It read, “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.”
The former First Lady held a meeting with key staff, including the physician, Suhayb Rafindadi; the CSO, Bashir Abubakar; the housekeeper, and the SSS DG to explain the plan.
Aisha Buhari said, “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,” Omole narrated.
However, the routine deteriorated.
“Then came the gossip and the fearmongering. They said I wanted to kill him,” the book quotes her as saying.
“My husband believed them for a week or so,” she said, revealing that 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,” she revealed.
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.
He acknowledged receiving blood transfusions and was “never so ill” upon his return.
According to Omole, Buhari’s absences “sparked rumours, speculation, and even conspiracy theories.”
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Aisha Buhari refuted rumours that her husband was being poisoned.
Her contention, Omole noted, is that “loss of a routine, ‘my nutrition,’ was the genesis of the crisis.”
Critics claimed that Buhari’s reliance on UK hospitals revealed Nigeria’s health system’s shortcomings, according to Omole.
Additionally, he pointed out that Buhari’s practice of transferring authority to his deputy while he was away guaranteed “institutional propriety, even during personal health crises.”
The book also revealed a climate of mistrust around the Presidency.
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