Late Maryam Babangida (1948-2009)

A press release from Ogbeni Lanre Banjo, NCP Gubernatorial Candidate in Ogun State, 2007 & 2003.

Mrs. Babangida’s death has certainly inflicted pains in the hearts of her husband, children and immediate family.

Unlike the death of the late Dele Giwa in a letter bomb during the General Babangida’s tenure in Nigeria, Mrs. Babangida did not die in inferno. Even though her death came when Babangida’s family members are supposed to be celebrating Christmas and New Year, her death was expected, unlike Dele Giwa and many others whose lives were brought to abrupt end under Babangida’s regime.

She did her best for the rural women whose welfares she sought to promote, but lack of institution still make rural women suffer today, thus causing her vision for the rural women to remain unfulfilled. A very beautiful woman who needed no make up to show her glamour and glow, Maryam was a package of class in the exercise of power. In dressing, she was far better than Michelle Obama. She was a positive touch bearer for first ladies and women operating in the corridors of power. Adieu Madam Maryam Babangida. May the Lord grant her family the fortitude to bear the loss!

The death of Mrs. Babangida has brought further reflections about the misgovernance in Nigeria. Events in life are lessons to others who are willing to learn from them and atone. Death is one of those events, and the way it comes teaches those still alive a sort of lesson. That a former head of state of a naturally great country has to sit in a foreign country’s hospital for months without the respect he would have naturally been accorded if he had built the same hospital with the same equipment, allowing his fellow citizens to use their talents to develop in his country of birth, is a lesson.

It would have dawned on Babangida that were the kind of the hospital he flew his wife to in California built in Nigeria; the honor he would have received in his country would have been far greater than what he received at the University of California Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles. The cost of flying his wife remaining back to Nigeria would have been saved. The agony of being in first class and his wife lifeless body in a coffin among luggage would have been saved. This is a wage for Babangida who is regarded as a duplicitous ruler and pernicious schemer, a ruthless and vindictive schemer. By now, Babangida and others like him should have been convinced that failure to work for the greatness of one’s country has its price.

- A press release from Ogbeni Lanre Banjo, NCP Gubernatorial Candidate in Ogun State, 2007 & 2003.

Editor’s note:
According to a press statement signed by the special assistant to the former head of state, Ibrahim Ismalia, Mrs. Babangina died early morning on December 26, 2009, at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Centre in the United States. She was receiving treatment for ovarian cancer.

Read more about the death on 234.Next.com

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