TheCable

Aisha Buhari, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, is currently in Washington DC, capital of the United States.

Her visit comes less than two months after Ayo Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, alleged that she had been evading the country over her involvement in the Halliburton scam, an allegation she denied.

But insisting that she was the one indicted by a US court for transferring $170,000 to Williams Jefferson, a US congressman, Fayose challenged her to visit the US to prove her innocence.

“I challenge the president’s wife to visit the United States of America to convince Nigerians that she was not the Aisha Buhari mentioned in the judgment convicting William Jefferson,” Fayose had said in a statement issued on his behalf by Idowu Adelusi, his chief press secretary.

“It is on record that the president has visited USA three times and his wife did not travel with him. Equally, she ought to have visited USA last year September to chair a United Nations programme but she sent wife of the Senate President, Mrs Toyin Saraki to represent her.”

Back then, TheCable had investigated the claims of the governor, and the international passport of the said Aisha showed that she was not the same as Aisha, the president’s wife.

According to the passport numbered A034120637, Aisha is surnamed Buhari, and has a given name Mohammadu, not Muhammadu as the president spells his name, and was born in Daura on August 4, 1975 – four years younger than the president’s wife, who was born in February, 1971.

The passport was issued by the Nigerian embassy in Washington DC on January 19, 2012 – and neither the president’s wife nor his daughter ever lived in the US, and could not reasonably have travelled to the US to obtain a Nigerian passport.

As at the time this report was filed, the governor had not reacted to the visit of Mrs. Buhari.