Date Published: 12/27/09

Biography of Late Mrs Babangida

Maryam Babangida

Mrs. Maryam Babangida was born in November, 1948. She had fairly humble beginnings in her hometown of Asaba where she received part of her early education before moving up north to Queen Amina's College Kaduna for her Secondary education. She went on to graduate as a Secretary at the Federal Training Centre, Kaduna and later obtained a diploma in secretaryship from Laselle University, Chicago, USA as well as a Certificate in Computer Science from the NCR Institute in Lagos.

On September 6th,1969, two months before her 21st Birthday, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (then a Major), took time off the war front to marry her. Their marriage has been blessed with four children: 2 boys, Mohammed and Aminu and two girls, Aisha and Halima. Apart from a brief stop at a career in her line of training, before and shortly after marriage, Mrs. Babangida remained a full time housewife, establishing and nurturing the home front until the youngest had fairly come of age.

Mrs. Babangida, considered to be one of the greatest women in Africa today, made that significant sacrifice in her staunch belief that the family unit is the most crucial factor in the quality of society and of mankind and that the woman is the central anchor of the unit.

By 1983, she however was again ready for an active career, beyond the confines of the home front when her husband became the Chief of Army Staff on December 31st that year. She became the President of the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association (NAOWA). It was during her twenty month presidency that her leadership qualities were first unfolded to the public as she mobilised her colleagues to embark aggressively on public spirited ventures which included building schools, clinics, women's multipurpose training centres and child day care centres. In that short period she hit the National limelight by transforming the image of the Association from one of redundancy and relative obscurity to a credible and action oriented body, thus winning more members and public goodwill in the process. Thus, by the time she became first lady shortly after, she had been well prepared to repeat her pioneering success at the national level.

An incisive thinker and passionate lover of nature, gardening, birds and home decorations, she is "a poet's dream" and with disarming charm and an admirable deft blend of winning wit, quiet confidence and child-like grace, she has brought the institution of first-ladyship out of the closet to active participation in nation building.

Such is the strength of her appeal that a usually catchy female columnist once wrote that Maryam Babangida has "the regality of a modern day Queen Amina of Nigeria, the determination of India's Indira Gandhi, the eloquence of a veteran demagogue and the elegance of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt".

Even these hallowed models would themselves have smiled with envy.