Buhari Believed I Planned On Killing Him – Aisha.

Former First Lady Aisha Buhari has narrated how rumours circulating within Aso Rock caused her husband, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, to believe she was plotting to kill him.

She disclosed that Buhari started “locking his room” after hearing gossip at the Presidential Villa alleging that she intended to harm him.

The former First Lady also explained that the health challenge which compelled Buhari to embark on 154 days of medical leave in 2017 began with a disruption in his feeding routine and poor nutritional management.

She insisted that Buhari’s illness was neither mysterious nor the result of poisoning.

Her account of the health crisis is documented in a newly released 600-page biography titled ‘From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari’, written by Dr Charles Omole and presented at the State House on Monday.

The 22-chapter book traces Buhari’s life from his early years in Daura, Katsina State, to his final moments in a London hospital in mid-July 2025.

According to the book, Mrs Buhari had long overseen her husband’s meals and supplements at fixed intervals, a routine she said helped “a slender man with a long history of malnutrition symptoms” remain strong.

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

The book states: “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 reportedly summoned a meeting with close aides, including the physician, Suhayb Rafindadi; the Chief Security Officer, Bashir Abubakar; the housekeeper; and the Director General of the SSS, to outline the nutrition plan.

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

Omole recounted: “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.”

However, the routine eventually broke down.

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

She added: “My husband believed them for a week or so,” revealing that the President began locking his room, altered small habits and, most critically, “meals were delayed or missed; the supplements were stopped.”

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

The decline in Buhari’s condition eventually led to two prolonged medical trips to the United Kingdom in 2017, totalling 154 days, during which he handed over authority to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

On his return, Buhari admitted that he had been “never so ill” and confirmed that he received blood transfusions.

Omole wrote that Buhari’s prolonged absence “sparked rumours, speculation, and even conspiracy theories.”

Mrs Buhari rejected claims that there were plots to poison her husband.

Omole noted that her position is that the “loss of a routine, ‘my nutrition,’ was the genesis of the crisis.”

He explained that doctors in London prescribed an even more intensive supplement regimen.

Initially, Buhari “was frightened and not taking them as prescribed. So she took charge of his welfare, slipping hospital-issued supplements into his juice and oats,” the book stated.

The former First Lady described the recovery as rapid, saying: “After just three days, he threw away the stick he was walking with. After a week, he was receiving relatives.”

The book added: “‘That,’ she says, ‘was the genesis, and also the reversal of his sickness.’”

Omole observed that critics argued Buhari’s reliance on hospitals in the United Kingdom exposed weaknesses in Nigeria’s healthcare system.

He wrote that a “more compassionate perspective” recognises that a man in his seventies may require specialised medical care “not readily available in Nigeria” after “decades of underinvestment.”

He also highlighted Buhari’s consistent practice of transferring authority to his deputy during medical absences, noting that it ensured “institutional propriety, even during personal health crises.”

The book further revealed an atmosphere of mistrust surrounding the Presidency.

Mrs Buhari alleged surveillance, including the planting of listening devices in the President’s office and the replaying of private conversations, stating that fear and conscience “contributed to taking his life.”

She also dismissed the long-standing claim that Buhari had a body double, commonly referred to as “Jibril of Sudan,” describing it as ridiculous and blaming poor government communication for allowing ordinary events to evolve into widespread conspiracy theories.