Late Maryam Babangida
Former First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1985-1993)
Maryam Babangida née King was born in 1948 in Asaba (present-day Delta State), where she attended her primary education. Her parents were Hajiya Asabe Halima Mohammed from the present Niger State and Leonard Nwanonye Okogwu from Asaba.
She later moved north to Kaduna where she attended Queen Amina's College Kaduna for her Secondary education. She graduated as a secretary at the Federal Training Centre, Kaduna. Later she obtained a diploma in secretaryship from La Salle Extension University (Chicago, Illinois) and a Certificate in Computer Science from the NCR Institute in Lagos. On 6 September 1969, before her 21st birthday, she married Major Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida who became Chief of Army Staff in 1983, and Maryam Babangida became President of the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association (NAOWA). She was active in launching schools, clinics, women's training centres and child day care centers.
General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida became Nigeria's head of state from 1985 to 1993. As the wife of the Head of State, she was credited with creating the position of First Lady of Nigeria and making it her own. She championed women issues vigorously. As first lady, she launched many programmes to improve the life of women. As First Lady, she turned the ceremonial post into a champion for women's rural development. She founded the Better Life Programme for Rural Women in 1987, which launched many co-operatives, cottage industries, farms and gardens, shops and markets, women’s centres and social welfare programs. The Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women's Development was established in 1993 for research, training, and mobilization of women towards self-emancipation. She reached out to the first ladies of other African countries to emphasize the effective role they can play in improving the lives of their people.
Her book, Home Front: Nigerian Army Officers and Their Wives, published in 1988, emphasized the value of the work that women perform in the home in support of their husbands, and has been criticized by feminists.
Working with the National Council for Women's Societies (NCWS) she had significant influence, helping gain support for programmes such as the unpopular SFEM (Special Foreign Exchange Market) program to cut subsidies, and to devalue and fix the currency. She also established a glamorous persona. Talking about the opening of the seven-day Better Life Fair in 1990, one journalist said "She was like a Roman empress on a throne, regal and resplendent in a stone-studded flowing outfit that defied description..." Women responded to her as a role model, and her appeal lasted long after her husband fell from power.
On November 15, 2009, rumours circulated that the former first lady had died in her hospital bed in Los Angeles over complications arising from terminal ovarian cancer.
Maryam Babangida died from ovarian cancer on 27 December 2009 at 61 years old at the University of California (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, California hospital. Her husband was at her side as she died. They had four children.
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