Aisha Buhari: My late husband’s ‘other room’ comment was funny — but ill-timed

Aisha Buhari, wife of former President Muhammadu Buhari, says she finds the controversial “other room” remark by her late husband amusing, but believes it was made on the wrong stage.

The comment was made in 2016 during a press conference in Berlin, Germany, when Buhari responded to questions about his wife’s criticism of his administration.

Sharing the stage with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Buhari said: “I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room”.

The remark followed Aisha Buhari’s earlier criticism of her husband in a BBC Hausa interview, which intensified scrutiny of the couple’s public exchanges during his presidency.

Aisha’s reflections on the comment were captured in a 600-page biography titled ‘From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari’. 

Written by Charles Omole and launched at the State House on Monday, the book spans 22 chapters, tracing Buhari’s life from his childhood in Daura, Katsina, to his final days in a London hospital in mid-July 2025.

In the biography, Aisha said the remark, which sparked global outrage in 2016, was a private joke between her and her husband but was ill-suited for a public setting.

Omole described Aisha as treating the comment “with the shrug of someone who knows the man and the soldier’s habit of gallows humour”, while acknowledging it was inappropriate for the international stage.

“In the global square, irony travels badly,” the author noted, adding that the remark was often interpreted as policy rather than humour.