According to former First Lady Aisha Buhari, late former President Muhammadu Buhari made the contentious “other room” remark at the wrong time.
Mrs. Buhari claims that statements like that frequently don’t transfer well on a global scale.
Her opinions on the statement are included in Charles Omole’s recently published biography of the former president, “From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari.”
The remark “she belongs to my kitchen…and the other room” took on a life of its own after it was said in Germany while standing next to Angela Merkel, according to excerpts from the book.
“Aisha Buhari answers with the casualness of someone who is aware of the soldier’s and the man’s propensity for gallows humor.”
“We chuckled over it,” she recalls. She acknowledges, however, that the location was inappropriate for such a joke.
The book says, “Irony travels badly in the global square.” When she returned home, she was questioned by foreign coworkers who took the joke to be official policy.
Her response was straightforward: both she and he are aware of their roles. The gap between the country he envisioned and the government he oversaw was a point of contention between them.
However, they never debated whether or not she should be in places where authority is used. She just came in.
