Aisha Buhari (pictured above) has broadcast her doubts, in public, that her husband knew little about the top executives in his government. People who did not share the vision of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had been appointed to top posts because of the influence of a "few people," she told the British broadcaster BBC's Haussa language service in an interview broadcast on Friday.

She refused to name the officials, saying: "You will know them if you watch television."

Speaking about the next presidential elections, Buhari's wife said, "He is yet to tell me, but I have decided as his wife that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before. I will never do it again," she insisted.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari reacted to his wife's comments during a state visit to Berlin, where he met Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"I don't know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room," the Associated Press reported Buhari as saying. The German Chancellor gave him a glance and then laughed.

"I claim superior knowledge over her and the rest of the opposition, because in the end I have succeeded. It's not easy to satisfy the whole Nigerian opposition parties or to participate in the government," Buhari said.

The leader participated in four elections before finally winning in 2015 after promising to crack down on corruption and   uproot the Boko Haram insurgency.

On Thursday, his government announced the release of 21 girls who had been kidnapped by the terror group in 2014 from Chibok, in Nigeria's northeast.

Buhari has not yet said whether he will stand for the next elections in 2019.

mg/jm (AP)