10 facts about Aisha Buhari at 46

Wife of the Nigerian President, Hajia Aisha Buhari, clocked 46 on Friday.

Here are 10 quick facts about the beautiful and brainy partner of Sai Baba.

1. Aisha Buhari was born on February 17, 1971 in Adamawa State.
2. Her grandfather, Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, was Nigeria’s first minister of defence and her father was a civil engineer.
3. She got married to retired General Muhammadu Buhari, who is 28 years older, on December 2, 1989, after he divorced his first wife, Safinatu Yusuf.
4. Aisha Buhari got her Bachelor of Arts degree in public administration from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU).
5. She is also a master’s degree holder in international affairs and strategic studies from the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna.
6. She founded the first beauty institute in northern Nigeria, Hanzy Spa and Hanzy Beauty Institute, a beauty salon in Kaduna and Abuja but closed it shortly after her husband won the March 2015 presidential election.
7. Aisha Buhari is a vocal advocate of women and children rights. She openly criticises child marriage, sexual trafficking and homosexuality.
8. The mother of five founded the Future Assured programme in 2015 to continue her advocacy work for the health and well-being of women and children through community mobilisation and health promotion.
9. On April 14, 2016, Aisha donated proceeds from her book, Essentials of Beauty Therapy: A Complete Guide for Beauty Specialists, to parents of the Chibok girls, the Buni Yadi boys murdered in 2014 and children suffering from malnutrition.
10. She told the BBC in an October 2016 interview that she would not back her husband in the next election unless he got a grip on his government, prompting him to quip “I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.”