Former First Lady, Aisha Buhari, has disclosed that rumours within the Presidential Villa alleging she planned to kill her husband, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, led him to alter his personal habits and temporarily distrust her, including locking his room and discontinuing meals and supplements she had managed for years.

Aisha made the disclosure in a newly released biography of the former president, From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari, authored by Dr Charles Omole, Director-General of the Institute for Police and Security Policy Research.

The 600-page book was launched at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday, with President Bola Tinubu and other political figures in attendance.

According to Aisha’s account in the book, the rumours gained ground see during Buhari’s 2017 health crisis, when he spent extended periods in the United Kingdom for medical treatment. She said the speculation falsely portrayed her as a threat to her husband’s life, causing Buhari to believe, for a time, that she intended to poison or harm him.

“Then came the gossip and the fearmongering. They said I wanted to kill him. My husband believed them for a week or so,” Aisha was quoted as saying.

She explained that Buhari’s belief in the rumours led him to change some routines that had previously supported his health. “He began locking his room, changed small habits, and crucially, meals were delayed or missed; the supplements were stopped,” she said, adding, “For a year, he did not have lunch. They mismanaged his meals.”

Aisha rejected claims that Buhari’s illness was caused by poisoning or a mysterious ailment, insisting instead that it resulted from a disruption of a carefully managed nutritional routine.

She said she had overseen Buhari’s meals and supplements for years, particularly before they moved into Aso Rock, and that the arrangement had helped maintain his stability.

“When the Presidency’s machinery took over our private lives, I explained the plan: daily, at specific hours, cups and bowls with tailored vitamin powders and oil, a touch of protein here, a change to cereals there. Elderly bodies require gentle, consistent support,” she said.

She added that although she briefed key officials, including Buhari’s physician, security aides and senior officials of the Department of State Services, the routine was later abandoned. According to her, “loss of a routine, ‘my nutrition,’ was the genesis of the crisis.”

Buhari returned to Nigeria on August 19, 2017, after spending 103 days in London receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment. In total, he was absent from the country for more than 150 days that year, a development that generated widespread concern about his fitness for office.

The biography also revisits other controversies during Buhari’s presidency, including his 2016 “other room” comment made during a press conference in Berlin, Germany. Aisha said she found the remark humorous but agreed it was said in the wrong setting.

“We joked about it,” she said, while conceding that “it was the wrong place to make the joke.”

Buhari died in a London clinic on July 13, 2025. The biography chronicles his life from his early years in Daura, Katsina State, to his final days abroad, while offering personal insights from his wife on the pressures, rumours and internal dynamics that shaped his presidency.