₦airaland Forum

johnie:
I remember when Halima was born just like yesterday.

She was the first child born to a head of state at Dodan Barracks (from the period when I was old enough to be concious of events around me).

There was such fanfare about Maryam's pregancy and the birth.

She was named Halima Sadiya, I believe after Maryam's mother.

Maryam was really in the spotlight in those days.

Wish she was here now.

I just remembered one of the jokes that was exchanged between President Babangida and journalists on that day (apart from the cartoon).

Remember that, from around 1986, Babangida's government had a campaign about family planning. Somebody had come up with statistics that showed that Nigeria would be one of the most populous countries in the world by the year 2000 and that many children were being born into poverty because their parents had too many children and did not have enough money to take care of them. They also showed that many women had died because they had given birth too many times within a short period of time.

So the government ran a campaign that encouraged Nigerians not to have more than four children and to have at least a two year gap between children.

Episodes of Village Headmaster and New Masquerade were dedicated to the campaign and the Federal Ministries of Health and Information sponsored many family planning adverts on tv and radio (Sunny Ade and Onyeka Onwenu would later release two songs about family planning).

So, on that day, a journalist asked President Babangida if he would stop having children, since his government was encouraging Nigerians to have not more than four children and he now had four children (Mohammed, Aisha, Aminu and now Halima).

Unfortunately I can't remember President Babangida's answer.

johnie:
This?

Yes

johnie:
I remember when Halima was born just like yesterday.

She was the first child born to a head of state at Dodan Barracks (from the period when I was old enough to be concious of events around me).

There was such fanfare about Maryam's pregancy and the birth.

She was named Halima Sadiya, I believe after Maryam's mother.

Maryam was really in the spotlight in those days.

Wish she was here now.

I also remember my sisters talking about Maryam's baby bump during the state visit to the UK.

Remember phone numbers.

I can still remember many phone numbers from the 1980s, but I can't remember the phone numbers of my brothers and sisters today.

johnie:
I remember when Halima was born just like yesterday.

She was the first child born to a head of state at Dodan Barracks (from the period when I was old enough to be concious of events around me).

There was such fanfare about Maryam's pregancy and the birth.

She was named Halima Sadiya, I believe after Maryam's mother.

Maryam was really in the spotlight in those days.

Wish she was here now.

It was a day or two after Halima was born (she was delivered at either Professor Bello-Osagie or Dr Oheari's hospital). President Babangida was walking on the lawn at State House Ribadu Road. It was the first time that journalists saw him after Halima was born. They were congratulating him and he was joking with them. Then he asked to see the cartoonist that drew that sketch.

I later saw the cartoon. It showed President Babangida feeding Halima with a gigantic feeding bottle.

johnie:
Could that have been Jossy Ajiboye or Omooba?

That's the terrible thing. I can't remember who it was.

"Where is that cartoonist?"

Ibrahim Babangida (in 1989) enquiring about the cartoonist who drew a sketch of him feeding Halima with a giant feeding bottle.

Valderama, Higuita, Asprilla, Valencia and Rincon.


Man! What a team!