In This Biography
Esther Oluremi Obasanjo Biography, Age, Career, Family
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Esther Oluremi Obasanjo
|
|
|---|---|
| First Lady of Nigeria | |
| In role 13 February 1976 – 1 October 1979 |
|
| Head of State | Olusegun Obasanjo |
| Preceded by | Ajoke Muhammed |
| Succeeded by | Hadiza Shagari |
| Second Lady of Nigeria | |
| In role 29 July 1975 – 13 February 1976 |
|
| Chief of Staff | Olusegun Obasanjo |
| First Lady | Ajoke Muhammed |
| Preceded by | Anne Wey |
| Succeeded by | Hajia Binta Yar’Adua |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Oluremi Akinlawon
1941 (age 81–82) |
| Nationality | Nigerian |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5; including Iyabo Obasanjo |
Esther Oluremi Obasanjo also known as Mama Iyabo is a former Nigerian First Lady. She was previously married to President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Biography
Oluremi Akinlawon was the daughter of a polygamist station master and Mrs. Alice Akinlawon (nee Ogunlaja). She met Olusegun Obasanjo in the Owu Baptist Church Choir aged 14 and they courted for 8 years. They married on 22 June 1963 at Camberwell Green Registry, SE London when she was aged 21 without the knowledge of their families. She obtained training in institutional management in London.
She assumed the role of First Lady in February 1976 following a coup that resulted in the death of Murtala Muhammed. She was not often seen at public engagements like Victoria Gowon because Murtala Muhammed decided that it was inappropriate for the spouses of military leaders to be in the public eye.
Work
In 2008, Obasanjo published an autobiography titled Bitter-Sweet: My Life with Obasanjo which chronicled her life experiences with Olusegun Obasanjo portraying him as a violent womanizer.
Her style is described as “elegant in a subtle manner” as she was often dressed in traditional outfits.
Life with Obasanjo
The first wife of the former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo has broken it in spectacular style with a tell-all autobiography, Bitter-Sweet: My Life with Obasanjo. The author paints a portrait of her husband as a vindictive “master of decoy”, a “violent and unrepentant wife-basher”, and a man whose “womanizing knows no bounds”. It couldn’t come at a worse time for the 72-year-old Mr. Obasanjo who has been busily building a new profile for himself as a pan-African statesman second only to Kofi Annan.
What ensues is an almost slapstick riot of affairs and breathless high politics punctuated with domestic violence and desperation. And it’s one in which Mama Iyabo is happy to name names. In the early 1970s, her particular nemesis was an older married woman called Mowo Sofowora. One evening, she recalls: “I was eavesdropping on the phone downstairs while Obasanjo was in the bedroom. They had spoken for about 30 minutes when she then said she was having a headache. I had heard enough, so I butted in: ‘It’s that headache that will kill you, shameless married woman dating a younger man’. On hearing my voice, Obasanjo charged downstairs to beat me and we had one of the many fights that had come to define our marriage.”
On another occasion, Oluremi Obasanjo, now pregnant, was surprised to hear a nurse at the hospital announcing that Mrs. Obasanjo was coming in with her sick children. “Lo and behold, she [Mowo] soon appeared with Busola and Segun, my children. I removed my head tie … and lunged at her. ‘Mowo, Oko ni o gba, o le gba omo mi,’ I screamed, meaning: ‘You may snatch my husband you can’t snatch my kids.’ I slapped and punched her. It was a spectacle. The hospital was turned upside down. I ran after the car that brought her, and smashed the side glass.” Surprisingly she reserves no particular ire for Stella Adebe-Obasanjo, who would go on to be the general’s third and most notorious wife, eventually dying while undergoing liposuction in Spain. She describes Stella as just another in “the stable of Obasanjo’s many ponies. Her problem was that she was too showy and lacked self-respect. During our tempest, she would telephone me to announce that she was in complete control of my husband.” In addition to the string of affairs, including one with the wife of another Big Man, the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, she reveals an extraordinary fallout with Murtala Muhammed, the brigadier he would later succeed in 1976 as military ruler of Nigeria. Muhammed’s mistake was to reprimand him over his treatment of his wife: “Obasanjo was enraged that Muhammed was telling him how to take care of his wife. So, he grabbed Muhammed by the collar, in the presence of other officers, and challenged him to a duel.”
The final word of course should go to Mama Iyabo, who says that it’s about time more people followed her lead: “The public deserves to know a lot more about the experiences of public figures beyond the advertised public appearances they see. If my work has succeeded in doing so, we should look at it as expanding the democratic frontiers of the free flow of information. Nigeria and Nigerians need to shed the culture of undue secrecy about public figures and public affairs.”
Oluremi Obasanjo Networth
She is estimated to be worth between $500k – $2m
References
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Okon-Ekong, Nseobong (2010-10-02). “Nigeria: First Ladies – Colourful Brilliance, Gaudy Rays”. Thisday. AllAfrica.com. Archived from the original on 2012-04-23. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
- ^ Adebayo, Adeolu (2017-10-22). Olusegun Obasanjo: Nigeria’s Most successful ruler. Safari Books Ltd. ISBN 978-978-54785-2-5.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Howden, Daniel (2009-01-10). “Revealed: The Secrets of an African first lady”. The Independent. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Iliffe, John (2011). Obasanjo, Nigeria and the World. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84701-027-8.
- ^ “First Ladies of style”. Punch Newspapers. 2017-10-01. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
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