“I Knew My Marriage Would End” — Halima Kazaure Opens Up on Divorcing Bashir El-Rufai

Nigerian lawyer Halima Kazaure, ex-wife of Bashir El-Rufai, son of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, has opened up about her life after divorce, writing about single parenthood, falling in love again, heartbreak, and navigating her ADHD diagnosis as a working single mother of twin boys.

She shared her story in a post titled “Everybody Thought I Was Amazing,” published on her Substack, Limadiary, under her memoir series: Chaos Will Sit Across From Me — Memoirs of a Single Nigerian Twin Mum with ADHD.

In the post, Halima revealed that her marriage ended in July 2024, two years after she and Bashir welcomed twin boys in 2021. She wrote that she had never had much faith in marriage and had sensed its end before it even began, having grown up without enough examples of men as safe emotional spaces.  

“Imagine entering a marriage already preparing for its funeral,” she said. “Somewhere inside me, I think I knew my marriage would end before it even began.”

Halima Kazaure is a lawyer who attended Law School and is gainfully employed. She married Bashir El-Rufai in 2020, and the couple welcomed twin boys the following year. When Bashir publicly announced the end of their marriage, he attributed it to what he described as “Gen Z wahala”

In her Substack post, Halima Kazaure revealed that several months after her divorce, she fell in love again only to have her heart broken. 

“For someone with so little faith in men, I have a ridiculous amount of faith in love. I trusted again. Hoped again. Imagined again. And got my heart broken again. There is a saying that men will stain your white,” she wrote. “The irony is that I love wearing white.”