Victoria Aguiyi-Ironsi, former first lady, is dead

Victoria Aguiyi-Ironsi, wife of the late Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, first Nigerian military head of state, has died at the age of 97.

TheCable learnt she died at the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Abia state in the early hours of Monday after a prolonged battle with stroke.

She was born on November 21, 1923, and was first lady from January 17, 1966 to July 1966.

She married Aguiyi-Ironsi as a 16-year-old student of Holy Rosary Convent School, Okigwe.

Her husband was killed in Ibadan, Oyo state, on July 29, 1966 in a coup,  and she never remarried.

She had eight children who were taken and cared for by nuns in Ibadan during the Nigerian civil war.