Aisha Buhari, wife of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, has disclosed that her husband briefly believed rumors within the Presidential Villa suggesting she wanted to kill him.
According to her account, the gossip led Buhari to suspect that she intended to poison him, prompting changes in his behavior, including locking his room and altering his daily routines.
The revelation is contained in a newly released 600-page biography titled From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari, written by Dr. Charles Omole and unveiled at the State House on Monday.
In the book, Mrs. Buhari explained that her husband’s severe health crisis in 2017, which resulted in a 154-day medical stay in the United Kingdom, was not caused by poisoning or any mysterious illness, as widely speculated at the time. Instead, she attributed it to poor nutrition and disrupted meal routines.
She noted that she had personally overseen Buhari’s diet and supplements for years, carefully managing his nutrition to support his health.
“Then came the gossip and the fearmongering. They said I wanted to kill him,” the book quoted her as saying.
“My husband believed them for a week or so.”
She revealed that during that period, Buhari began locking his room and making small changes to his habits. More critically, his meals were delayed or missed, and his supplements were discontinued.
“For a year, he did not have lunch. They mismanaged his meals,” she said.
Mrs. Buhari added that once proper nutrition and supplementation were restored during his treatment in London, Buhari’s health improved rapidly, noting that he abandoned his walking stick just three days later.
The biography also sheds light on mistrust within the Presidential Villa, including claims of surveillance and conspiracy theories such as the widely circulated but debunked “Jibril of Sudan” body-double rumor.
The 22-chapter book chronicles Buhari’s life from his childhood in Daura, Katsina State, through his military and political career, to his death in a London hospital in July 2025 at the age of 82.
