By Ismail Auwal
Nigerian former Military Head of State, General Ibrahim Badamasi, said he chooses to stay unmarried to honour his deceased wife, Maryam Babangida.
The former Head of State disclosed this in an interview with TrustTv.
” It is a matter of choice; I decided to honour her by being not a bachelor but being unmarried.”
“So far her children have done very well, they are always around and they are always there for me, whatever I want to do and they have quite conveniently fit into her place,” Babangida said.
Babangida and Maryam married on September 6, 1969, just before her 21st birthday, while he, Babangida, was only 28. They were blessed to have four children. Maryam was well-known for her fashion sense and interest in women’s empowerment until her death in 2009.
The late Maryam Babangida will be remembered for establishing the office of Nigeria’s First Lady, which she used to advocate for women’s causes, including the Better Life Programme for Rural Women in 1987.
Talking about his private life, Babangida said,” many people know that I am a human being and therefore all the human frailties you can attribute some of them to me.”
“A lot of people saw me from the point of view of my profession or from the job I did but I still remain a human being, I have feelings, I have respect for people and I don’t always like to be in a situation where I find myself quarreling with anybody at all, I try to avoid that.”
In the interview, he also responded to the allegation that he always wants to dominate the environment he finds himself in.
“No, it is a military term that I am always fond of using. When we were taught as either cadets or as officers, we used to use the phrase “dominating the environment”. “
“You must be able to dominate the environment, and how do you dominate the environment? By looking at it, by being in a commanding height where you can see everybody, where you can be able to take action on people around you so you dominate the environment; you see, you hear and you act on certain circumstances,” he asserted.