Matron of the Game
Alhaja Simbiat Daudu Female Hostel in Yaba, Lagos State, had a reputation of attracting a few men of means and some low and medium-earning men, but men who had bright future and who were in their late 20s and early to late 30s.
He was a major general of the Nigerian Army, the Chief of Army Staff and only ten days into his forty-fourth year on earth, when he struck in the wee small hours of Tuesday, 27th August 1985, ousting his Commander-in-Chief and Head of the Nigerian State, Major General Mohammadu Buhari, in a palace coup: not a single soul was lost. And he assumed leadership of the Nigerian people, becoming the first and only military President. He is retired General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), former Armoured Commander, former President and husband of former Miss Maryam King.
Never before he came to power, neither since he left office, have Nigerians been led by a leader with such brilliance, such charisma, such cunning. He has once confessed that by nature, he dominates his environment; and he led us by the nose for eight years, surviving a coup attempt and a full-blown one, that generally accepted as the bloodiest in our history. In both incidents, tens lost their lives before and during action, and a number of condemned coup-plotters, including officers and non-commissioned officers, were sent to their graves. He was a tough general and president, and will expectedly remain so today as a 83-year-old retired general. But his gap-toothed smile and benign aura belly this toughness.
He has known battles and still has logged close to his lungs till this day, a bullet he collected during the Nigerian civil war. Due to the complications of removing the bullet, he took his doctor's advice and resolved to leave it there, provided it would not have any side effect.
Battle-tested can best be used to describe him. The fear of death should not be associated with him, because the giving and taking of death was his calling. In his own words, 'Once you get trained, you become indoctrinated and death can never scare you again.'
But as he lay in the hospital bed after the bullet operation, he realised how close he was to being given death. He saw the need to get married and have children who would carry on his name in case he was not lucky next time. This was especially after watching on television from the same hospital bed, his then Commander-in-Chief, Major General Yakubu Gowon, getting married.
The then Lt. Babangida had a beautiful damsel in mind: 19-year-old Maryam, cousin of his soldier pal, Lt. Garba Duba. Not even a war veteran like Babangida was immune to the adrenalin that rushed through his veins as he was enveloped by the fear of a possible turn down. He had a reputation of being a fun-lover and a Casanova. And this could work against him. But after assuring Duba that he was dead serious this time and wanted to settle down for good, he got his pal's go-ahead. Then he put to action his brilliance which makes him say and do the right thing at the right time and which would much later earn him the sobriquet: Maradona. He resolved that bluntness would pay best.
So, how did playboy Ibrahim proposed to ebony-skinned Maryam? He recaptured that glorious moment in an interview with The Spectator: 'Easy. I did it in our typical military manner. I told her, Look, let's get married.'
But it was not that easy for player Ibrahim. In a separate interview with Saturday Sun to mark her 59th birthday, ageless Maryam reminisced about those exciting times in the budding days of their relationship: 'I said, No, I know your girlfriends. He said he really wanted my hand in marriage. I said, No, no, you are a playboy. Go away. He kept coming to the house. He told me he saw it in a dream.'
So, when did the hunted finally succumb to the hunter? 'It took me some time to make up my mind,' Maryam recalled with feminine pride.
And how did the teenager from Ogbeogo Village in Umuonaje Quarters of Asaba, Delta State, and who would later rise to animate, glamourise and popularise the office of the First Lady, accept the proposal.
Maryam recollected: 'I simply said, Okay, go and do the normal thing. Go through the procedure. He said okay, and that was it.'
And after less than six months of courtship, Ibrahim led Maryam down the alter late in the morning of Saturday, 6th September 1969. The celebrated Don Juan would eventually emerged the model husband with four kids, two males and two females, and never again to know any other woman, even when his religion allows maximum four wives. He kept his promise to the young woman who qualified as a secretary two years before: Maryam and she alone. An uphill challenge for a 28-year-old soldier.
To the battlefront Babangida returned after the nuptials, to ply his trade. But was it really possible that whenever he took a break from the battlefield and after the war, there was surely and ever no other woman?
'It was she and nobody else', confided the smiling general who is ancestrally from Wushishi, Niger State.
