‘Aso Rock Gossip Made Buhari Locking His Room, Mistrusted Me During His Illness’ — Ex-First Lady Aisha 

Former First Lady, Aisha Buhari, has revealed that her late husband, former President Muhammadu Buhari, once began locking his bedroom door after being told by aides that she was plotting to kill him.

Aisha made the shocking revelation in a new 600-page biography titled “From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari,” authored by Dr. Charles Omole and launched at the State House on Monday. The book chronicles Buhari’s life from his early days in Daura, Katsina State, to his final hours in a London hospital in mid-July 2025.

According to Omole, the former First Lady disclosed that the rumours and intrigue within the Presidential Villa contributed to a breakdown of trust between the couple during Buhari’s health crisis in 2017.

“Then came the gossip and the fearmongering. They said I wanted to kill him,” Mrs Buhari was quoted as saying.

“My husband believed them for a week or so,” she recounted, revealing that the President began locking his room, changing small habits, and crucially, missing meals and supplements.

Aisha said Buhari’s health challenge, which led to his 154-day medical leave in the United Kingdom in 2017, was not caused by poisoning or a mysterious illness as widely speculated, but rather by a disruption of his carefully managed diet.

“He doesn’t have a chronic illness. Keep him on schedule. Elderly bodies require gentle, consistent support,” she said.

She explained that before they moved into Aso Rock, she had supervised Buhari’s feeding routine and supplements, which helped “a slender man with a long history of malnutrition symptoms” maintain his strength.

“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’, a pattern of meals and supplements she had long overseen in Kaduna before they moved into Aso Villa,” Omole wrote.

The former First Lady said she once convened a meeting with close aides, including Buhari’s physician, Dr. Suhayb Rafindadi; Chief Security Officer, Bashir Abubakar; the housekeeper; and the then-Director General of the DSS to maintain the dietary plan.

“Daily, cups and bowls with tailored vitamin powders and oils, a touch of protein here, a change to cereals there,” she recalled.

However, the arrangement reportedly fell apart after rumours spread that she intended to harm her husband.

“For a year, he did not have lunch. They mismanaged his meals,” she lamented.

The deterioration, according to the book, culminated in Buhari’s two prolonged medical trips to London, during which he temporarily handed power to then-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Upon his return, Buhari admitted to being “never so ill” and confirmed he had received blood transfusions.

Aisha also dismissed rumours that the former President had been poisoned or replaced by a body double, popularly known as “Jibril of Sudan.”

“That story is absurd,” she said, arguing that poor communication from the Presidency allowed simple misunderstandings to evolve into wild conspiracy theories.

Omole noted that while critics faulted Buhari’s reliance on foreign hospitals, others viewed it as a reflection of Nigeria’s failing healthcare system.

He wrote that Buhari’s practice of transferring power to his deputy during absences demonstrated “institutional propriety, even during personal health crises.”

The book also portrays a tense atmosphere within Aso Rock, with Aisha alleging that the President’s office was bugged and conversations were secretly recorded.

She claimed that “fear and conscience contributed to taking his life,” adding that the climate of mistrust and paranoia around the Presidency weighed heavily on the late leader’s health.

“After just three days [of resuming supplements in London], he threw away the stick he was walking with. After a week, he was receiving relatives,” she recalled, describing the turning point in Buhari’s recovery.

“That,” she concluded, “was the genesis, and also the reversal of his sickness.”