Maryam Babangida, wife of Nigeria's former dictator is dead. She died Sunday morning after Christmas 2009 at the University of California Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles over complications arising from terminal ovarian cancer.
She was born on November 1, 1948 in Asaba, the capital of Delta State, to an Igbo family. She later moved to Kaduna State and attended the Queen Amina College Kaduna where she got her secondary education. Then she proceeded to the Federal Training Centre, Kaduna, and graduated as a secretary. On September 6, 1969, she got married to Ibrahim Babangida, whom she dutifully helped to run Nigeria like a factory in a spate of murders, corruption and mismanagement of resources.
They had four children: two boys, and two girls. When her husband became Chief of Army Staff in 1983, Maryam Babangida became President of the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association (NAOWA). She was active in this role; launching schools, clinics, women's training centres and child day care centres.When her husband became Head of State in 1985, Maryam Babangida moved with her children into Dodan Barracks in Lagos. As first lady of Nigeria, from 1985-1993, she turned the ceremonial post into a potent force for women's rural development in Nigeria. She founded the Better Life Program for Rural Women in 1987 which launched many cooperatives, cottage industries, farms and gardens, shops and markets, women centres and social welfare programmes. She also empowered Nigerian women through programmes on adult education, primary health, agriculture, skill-acquisition and food processing.
She died this morning at the University of California Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles over complications arising from terminal ovarian cancer.
