By Josephine Uzorh
Her husband portrays an austere lifestyle. But she goes big on jewelries, shoes and clothing.
On her husband’s inauguration on May 29, 2015, she wore a Cartier Baignoire Folle 18-Carat White Gold Diamond Ladies Watch that costs $52,000 or N10.4 million.
Her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari, had said in an interview with the Abuja based Daily Trust newspaper in December 2014, that if elected president, he would scrap the office of the first lady because it was unconstitutional.
On June 14, 2019, Aisha Buhari said she should no longer be addressed as as wife of the President but First Lady.
Even before she showed preference for the grand title of the First Lady, tax payers money was being allocated for the running of her office, according to an investigation by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR).
Her declaration to be referred to as First Lady instead of the wife of the president during the Democracy day dinner and gala on Tuesday, June 11, should not be a surprise. She has been working from the office of the First Lady located in the presidential villa.
Aisha loves grandness. She doesn’t spare any cash to look good. On the democracy day dinner, she came out like a royalty in an Oscar de la Renta Silk-Crepe Cape-Back Caftan which sells for $4,290 (N1.5 million), although some stores sell it for $2,145 (N772,200).
Aisha loves designer outfits. In September 2017, during a reception she held for her visiting Ugandan counterpart, Janet Museveni, she adored an expensive embroidered fabrics with diamond accessories.
On August 4, 2016, during her visit to Washington DC, she was seen carrying a black 35cm Porosus crocodile skin Hermes Birkin handbag worth $300,000 (N108 million).
In October 2016, she arrived Brussels, Belgium for the African Women’s Forum decked in a $2,600 Salvatore Ferragamo robe worth N1.157 million.
Aisha has not hidden her wealth, even though her known business before her husband became President was a beauty parlour.
Although her husband claimed that he couldn’t afford the APC’s nomination form which cost N44 million, she has however announced her plan to build a university to be named Muhammadu Buhari university.
Billions of naira are required for the project.
Aisha’s office, now fully recognised as the Office of the First Lady contrary to earlier pretenses, has proven to be a place where politicians and business people frequent in a bid to gain access to the husband, with patronages worth billions of naira exchanging hands in the process.
In September 2018, Aisha ordered the arrest of her own Aide De Camp, Sani Baba-Inna, a chief superintendent of police, after accusing him of receiving huge donations from politicians and business people on her behalf and then kept the cash to himself.
She asked the then Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to arrest and compel Baba-Inna to refund the money, put at over N2.5billion.
The ADC was arrested, not by the police, but the DSS.
After spending sometime with the DSS, the service handed him over to the police for further action. Since then, the matter has been quiet.