By Ayeotan Shola
The First Lady, Aisha Buhari, owned one of the biggest spas and beauty institutes in the country but recently shut the two businesses down due to the predictable tasking nature of her new role as the first lady of Nigeria.
Her beauty Spa is situated along Camp Road, a high brow area of Ungwan-Rimi Government Residential Area in Kaduna State.
Though, only soaring in popularity in recent months especially in the build up to the March 28 presidential election, where her husband, Muhammadu, a retired general and former Head of State, coasted to an overwhelming victory, Aisha has always been a known face especially among people who seek to pamper their bodies.
Hanzy Spa and Hanzy Beauty Institute as both channels of her business were called was always a beehive of activities all week long.
It is the first beauty institute in northern Nigeria, a National Board of Technical Education accredited vocational training centre and registered by the Ministry of Education with the aim of exploring the untapped wealth in the emerging beauty industry.
However, since the victory of her husband in March and his eventually swearing-in in Abuja, Aisha has since closed down the beauty parlour to take up the new role of Nigeria’s First Lady.
The spa and beauty institute patronised by individuals across class, was sighted close to the private residence of the immediate past Vice President, Namadi Sambo.
The institute was consulted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation/Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company to help train individuals under its Youth Empowerment and Skill Acquisition Programme.
But Aisha didn’t just venture into the business of pampering people’s skin and bodies; she worked very hard to learn the tricks of the business and how to succeed in it.
She is a trained esthetician, who obtained a diploma in Beauty Therapy from the Carlton Institute of Beauty Therapy, Windsor, United Kingdom and a certificate course from the French Beauty School, Esthetique Academie Dubai.
She is also a member of the United Kingdom’s Vocational Training and Charitable Trust and the International Health and Beauty Council.
In an interview she granted Thisday Style last year, the beautiful Adamawa State-born mother of five said,
“I’m a very busy person who does her things quietly. I keep to my profession as an esthetician, managing my spa and beauty institute both in Kaduna and Abuja. I also personally perform some advanced facial treatments like mesotherapy, gold facial and application of TCA etc. I have a number of documentations on my experience in this area including writing a book, The Essentials of Beauty Therapy.”
Her former job now appears to have come to an end as she takes up a more tasking responsibility of giving her husband the needed moral and emotional support required to bring massive transformation to a country craving for change.
