First lady and the wife of Nigeria’s president, Aisha Buhari, has confirmed that she was the one speaking angrily in a video that went viral after she was denied access to an apartment at the presidential villa by the family of Mamman Daura, Buhari’s nephew.
“I was the one in that video and the person you see standing at my back are my security personnel,” Mrs. Buhari said in an interview with BBC Hausa. It was Fatima, the daughter of Mamman Daura that shot the video in front of my security and everybody there. She was actually recording the whole thing right in front of me and was laughing and mocking me.”
Aisha was reacting to a BBC interview granted by Daura’s daughter who said the president’s wife attacked her and her sister inside the presidential villa. Fatima confirmed to BBC that she was the one that recorded the video of the first lady but denied releasing it to the public. She said she recorded the video as proof to show her parents that Mrs Buhari confronted her violently
Fatima said the president’s wife came to the apartment known as glasshouse after they were asked to vacate it for the president’s son Yusuf when he returned to the country from his treatment in Germany. Yusuf had sustained injury from a bike accident.
Fatima said they were packing their belongings when the Mrs Buhari stormed the apartment and was shouting angrily. “I was in an inner room in the house while my sister was in an outer one close to the main gate of the apartment. So my sister went out before I could come out.
“On getting there, it was the wife of the president. When she came, the door was locked and she picked a metal chair and broke the door. I have sent the picture to you. My sister that went out was almost hit by the chair. She threw the chair which broke through the door and almost hit my sister.
“I was so shocked and afraid of getting there because she was shouting and reigning abuses words and saying we should move out of that apartment. That she has never seen this kind of thing before. I then went back and picked my phone because if one is to say that she acted that way, no one would believe it without a proof. She has already been saying a lot of things depicting that she is being suppressed.”
Mrs. Buhari, however, said Daura’s family acted the way they did because Buhari had “sacked” them from the house. “They did that because my husband sacked them from the house. He told them to get all their belongings and leave the house for my son (Yusuf) to occupy. I left them and wanted to get to one of the rooms but they prevented me from getting through, I left them and took another way yet I met the store locked.”