Former First Lady Aisha Buhari says she has no aspirations to remarry, calling her decision pragmatic rather than moralistic.
“She will not remarry,” she says, almost with a shrug, she told Dr. Charles Omole, author of the new 600-page book ‘From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari,’ which was inaugurated at the State House in Abuja on Monday.
It said, “It is not a moral pronouncement so much as a pragmatic one: she has grandchildren; one husband was enough.”
The 22-chapter novel traced Buhari’s early life in Daura, Katsina State, to his death in a London hospital in mid-July 2025.
It portrayed her stance as a rejection of conventional stereotypes that depict widows as either betrayers or saints.
“In a culture that sometimes reads remarriage as betrayal or saintliness, her answer refuses both scripts. It is simply a woman naming the contours of her future,” the book explained.
The former First Lady outlines her plans for the next phase of her life, saying she intends to live a quieter public life, focusing on family, charities, and travel.
“Her plans are domestic and cosmopolitan at once. She will holiday with friends and associates. She will dote on grandchildren so they will remember her not as a moving figure behind tinted glass but as a presence in their childhood rooms.
“She will run her foundation, the Aisha Buhari Foundation, and the cardiovascular and medical center in Kano that has already completed over two hundred procedures.
“She will host, collaborate, and extend the same ethic of care that animated her politics into a quieter, more sustainable hospitality,” the book noted.
Omole portrayed the former First Lady’s choice as a personal reset after years in the political spotlight.
“If the republic expects a politics of eternal return, she offers a politics of departure instead: let others take the stage; let the house heal,” he said.
“For Aisha Buhari, her marriage served as both a refuge and a trial.
“It gave her a platform to voice her opinions, only to punish her for doing so. It opened doors to the decision-making spaces, but those spaces became unwelcoming.
“In 2014, she was entrusted with meeting the nation’s expectations; by 2014, she was excluded from acknowledgement,” it further read.
Following his divorce in 1988, Buhari married Aisha Buhari (née Halilu) on December 2, 1989.
Aisha, who was born in Adamawa State in 1971, became First Lady when Buhari was re-elected in 2015.
They were married for 35 years and had five children.
