Before Aisha, There Was Remi — & Her Revelations Hit Harder

By ALIYU ALIYU

The First Lady Who Broke the Silence Before It Was a Trend

A Precedent Nigeria Forgot

WHEN Aisha Buhari stunned the nation with televised grievances about her marriage to President Muhammadu Buhari, the moment felt unprecedented. It was not. Over a decade earlier, Oluremi Obasanjo had already cracked open the sanctified walls of presidential marriages, publishing allegations not only shocking in content but revolutionary in timing: she wrote them while her husband, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, was still alive, politically active, and fully capable of response. He barely did.

Her 2018 memoir, Bittersweet: My Life with Obasanjo, did more than narrate a troubled marriage. It challenged Nigeria’s culture of selective hero-worship, where presidents are mythologized and their private worlds treated as off-limits, even when those worlds shape national leadership psychology.

The Early Years: Love Before Power

Oluremi described meeting Obasanjo in humble circumstances, long before he became a military general or civilian president. According to her, he was materially poor but temperamentally volatile. One early flashpoint she cited was a physical confrontation between Obasanjo and Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle during the 1970 handover of the 3rd Marine Commando, an incident that reportedly stopped only after General Hassan Katsina threatened to summon the press. The anecdote served a symbolic purpose: even in military corridors, Obasanjo’s temper was no secret.

But love, she wrote, made her stay.

Post-War Descent: Abuse, Infidelity and Institutional Intervention

The memoir’s darkest turn began after the Nigerian Civil War ended on 12 January 1970. She alleged that Obasanjo’s aggression worsened, accompanied by serial infidelity and emotional detachment from his children. So severe were the tensions, she claimed, that General Murtala Mohammed secured a separate flat for her and their children in Surulere — a rare instance of the state intervening in the domestic life of a senior military officer.

Despite the arrival of multiple women in Obasanjo’s life — including Stella Obasanjo, who later became First Lady — Oluremi remained his only legally married wife.

Children, Courts and Public Evidence

The fallout did not end with separation. The Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library displays letters written by Oluremi and their daughter Iyabo, documents that reveal a family still wrestling with the psychological residue of power and patriarchy. The letters, angry and deeply personal, provide public corroboration that at least some family tensions were real, regardless of interpretive disagreements.

Even more explosive was a lawsuit by Obasanjo’s son, Gbenga, who once dragged his father to court alleging that his wife had an affair with Obasanjo. Though the suit collapsed, it signposted a crisis not of evidence but of family rupture so extreme it spilled into Nigeria’s judiciary.

Obasanjo’s Response: Minimal, Calculated, Telling

Obasanjo’s own memoir, My Watch, responded to these claims in less than a paragraph. On Iyabo, he wrote only that she misinterpreted his love for hatred. On Oluremi, he did not engage substantively. The brevity was not accidental. It was strategic — the response of a powerful man protected by culture, hierarchy, and national amnesia.

Verdict

Whether or not one believes every word Oluremi wrote, the real revelation is this: the allegations were published, loudly circulated, and never forcefully challenged. That silence itself is part of Nigeria’s story.