She reportedly died in the early hours of Monday, aged 97.
Chief Victoria Nwanyiocha Aguiyi-Ironsi, widow of the late Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigeria’s first military head of state, is dead.
She reportedly died in the early hours of Monday, aged 97.
Born on November 21, 1923, she was the second First Lady of Nigeria between January 16, 1966 and July 29, 1996, when her husband was assassinated in a counter military coup.
Aguiyi-Ironsi was killed in Ibadan in the coup led by Murtala Muhammed.
Reflecting on her life after the gruesome murder of her husband in an interview with The Guardian newspaper on June 3, 2016, she said.
“The truth is that 29th of July this year will be 50 years since my husband was killed. By then, I had eight children.
I have seen hell and at the same time, I have seen heaven.”