I ensured second wife, Aisha, was AA after losing two children to sickle cell – Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed that two of his children died due to sickle cell anaemia from his late first wife, Safinatu Buhari.
The President made this known in a documentary titled, ‘Essential Muhammadu Buhari’ shown on Friday night at a private dinner organised by his family and very closed associates to celebrate his 80th birthday tagged “Celebrating A Patriot, a Leader, an Elder Statesman”.
Buhari said as a result of this, he made a conscious effort that his next wife, Aisha, had to have the AA genotype so ‘his children will not inherit the ‘S’ from his AS genotype’
Speaking on claims by some Nigerians that presumed him to be long dead and replaced by a body double named ‘Jibril of Sudan’, he described it as “not a funny joke,”
According to him, the dark rumour was the handiwork of some mischief makers who thrive on what they do not understand.
“Yes! People said I am somebody from Sudan. I didn’t bother with the name. Nigerians have mischievous ways of explaining themselves,” he said.
Asked if he finds such allusions to be funny, he said: “No. It is not funny because those who made those statement, they just want to be cheeky. They want to distract attention from the main issue. Our main issue is to do the infrastructure, make people aware that they need to work hard to live well. They just want to enjoy life without earning the respect of their community and so on.”
