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Maryam Ndidi Okogwu was born 1st of November 1948 in Asaba, to the family of Pa Leonard Nwanonye Okogwu, an indigene of Asaba, Delta State.
She had her primary education at Asaba before her parents moved to Kaduna. Her mother Hajiya Asabe Halima Mohammed hailed from the present Niger State.
In Kaduna she attended Queen Amina’s College Kaduna for her Secondary education. She graduated as a secretary at the Federal Training Centre, Kaduna. Later she obtained a diploma in secretarial studies from La Salle Extension University (Chicago, Illinois) and a Certificate in Computer Science from the NCR Institute in Lagos.
On 6 September 1969, shortly before her 21st birthday, she married Major Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. They had four children, boys Mohammed and Aminu, and two girls, Aisha and Halima.
After her husband became Chief of Army Staff in 1983, Maryam Babangida became President of the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association (NAOWA). She was active in this role, launching schools, clinics, women’s training centres and child day care centers.
When her husband became head of state in 1985, Maryam Babangida moved with her children into Dodan Barracks in Lagos. She had to arrange for considerable renovations to make the rooms more suitable for formal receptions. Dodan barracks was one of the key locations seized in the April 1990 coup attempt by Gideon Orkar against Ibrahim Babangida, who was present in the barracks when the attack occurred, but managed to escape via a back route.
Maryam died at the age of 61 from ovarian cancer on 27 December 2009 in a Los Angeles, California, hospital.
The Times of Nigeria reported on her death that she was “considered to be one of the greatest women in Africa today”
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