Maryam was born in 1948 in Asaba, which is now in Delta State. She completed her elementary schooling there. Her parents were Leonard Nwanone Okogwu, an Igbo, from Asaba, and Hajiya Asabe Halima Mohammed, a Hausa from what is now Niger State. Later, she relocated to Kaduna in the north, where she completed her secondary school at Queen Amina’s College Kaduna. At the Federal Training Centre in Kaduna, she obtained her diploma as a secretary. Later, she graduated with a certificate in computer science from the NCR Institute in Lagos and a certification in secretaryship from La Salle Extension University in Chicago, Illinois. Just before turning twenty-one, on September 6, 1969, she wedded Major Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
Two daughters, Aisha and Halima, and two boys, Mohammed and Aminu, made up their family of four. In 1983, Maryam Babangida assumed the presidency of the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association (NAOWA) upon her husband’s appointment as Chief of Army Staff.
In this capacity, she was proactive in building clinics, schools, training facilities for women, and daycare facilities. She transformed the ceremonial position of First Lady of Nigeria from 1985 to 1993 into an advocate for women’s rural development. In 1987, she established the Better Living Programme for Rural Women, which gave rise to several co-ops, cottage businesses, markets and stores, farms and gardens, women’s centers, and social welfare initiatives.
In 1993, the Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women’s Development was founded with the goals of conducting research providing training, and inspiring women to achieve self-emancipation.
On December 27, 2009, Maryam, then 61 years old, passed away at a Los Angeles, California hospital due to ovarian cancer. Governors Ifeanyi Okowa and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal dedicated the Maryam Babangida Way in Asaba, the capital of Delta state, on March 19, 2020, thus perpetuating the memory of Maryam Babangida.
