First Lady Tinubu on marriage: ‘In 40 years, we’ve never raised voices at each other’

Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, on Thursday evening shared insights from her nearly four-decade interfaith marriage to President Bola Tinubu, highlighting patience, respect, and religious harmony as keys to peaceful coexistence.

 

Speaking at an Interfaith Breaking of Fast (Iftar and Lent) hosted at the Old Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja, she told attendees that her relationship with anyone who does not know God rarely lasts long. She emphasized that in her 40 years of marriage to a Muslim, she and the President could hardly recall ever raising their voices at one another.

 

“Some of us are married to people of different faiths, and we have lived together peacefully for many years. For me, almost 40 years—and I can tell you, I cannot remember when both of us raised our voices at each other,” she said.

 

The event brought together adherents of Nigeria’s major religious groups, including Christian and Muslim women leaders, and wives of state governors. Senator Tinubu used the occasion to urge women as role models in nurturing the younger generation, stressing service with “excellence, compassion, and integrity.”

 

She also addressed rising religious tensions in the country, calling for coexistence as a counter to insecurity and division. “Today is indeed a great day—a day that God only made for us to gather together. Since Ramadan and Lent overlap this year, it is like God is speaking to us as a nation,” she said.

 

Senator Tinubu’s remarks underscored her long-standing commitment to interfaith dialogue and harmony, drawing lessons from personal experience to encourage unity across religious divides.