YAR’ADUA NOT CORRUPT, HE LIVED SIMPLE LIFE-WIFE,TURAI. (PHOTO).

Yar’Adua Not Corrupt, He Lived Simple Life – Wife, Turai

About 13 years after the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, his wife Hajiya Turai Yar’Adua has spoken on life after her husband’s death, saying the late Yar’Adua was a very simple man, who was neither corrupt nor profligate .

Turai spoke in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service monitored by our correspondent in Kaduna on Saturday .

Commenting on how much she missed her late husband, the former First Lady’ said, “praise be to Allah.I don’t feel anything. I’m used to it. I think about him everyday. Everyday seems like any other day.The only difference is that today; people gathered to pray for him, eulogize him and I’m happy. I thank them.”

On what she could remember the day former President Yar’Adua died, she said, ” I was fasting on that day. In fact I’ve been fasting non stop from when he fell ill, even after he died I did not stopped. So when it was time for me to break my fast, he was lying down looking at me.

“I felt he does not wanted me to leave. I told him I was going to break my fast. He then shook his head and I left. I was later called and I met him struggling with his breath. That moment still lingers in my mind. I even quarried myself on why I left to break my fast, I should’ve stayed.”

Asked of the condition she found herself after, she explained that ” I’m a Muslim. I know life and death are realities. I know Allah gives and takes life.So what can I do ?I can only thank Allah who gave me and had taken away. I can’t be angry with Him for taking his life. Praise be to Allah.”

Speaking about Yar’Adua’s life, his character that was not known to many, she said ” he was simple. He was not carried away by worldly things. For example, he can be using a wrist watch continously until the strap gets broken into two.

“Unless if I sees it, he would continue to use it like that. He was a very simple person who did not attached importance to worldly things. Even leadership, Allah destined he would be but he wasn’t that ambitious about it.”

On the happy moments with him, she said, “our marriage was full of happiness. In fact people were saying they had never seen our kind of relationship. I was like a new bride everyday. That was why he always returned home straight, from the office.