Fellow
Nigerians, please forget the shakara of all men who try to act macho,
most men are ultimately controlled by their wives, and sometimes
girlfriends. Right from the biblical Genesis, women had always known
their enormous power and they’ve mastered how to use it.
It does not
matter if you are a king or a president, your wife is always your boss.
You may be as big as an elephant outside but you are only a small rat at
home. I always say this to my wife “how come a man can never be a
superstar at home?” I am yet to find an answer to that conundrum.
Your wife is the one who knows you
inside out. She has seen you in good times, when you were soaring like
an eagle, and in bad times, when you were down and flat out. She’s
witnessed when the ruthless hands of fate has dealt you some fatal blows
and you are feeling less than a man. No matter who or what you become
in life never matters again because she holds the copyright to your
authentic story. She is the author of life who has seen you in your
totality.
Women are generally intuitive and
sometimes possess the gift of clairvoyance. As men we tend to ignore or
dismiss the advice of our wives sometimes but they turn out to be right
most times much to our chagrin and often, regret. That has been my
personal experience with mine. I have learnt to accept her as my mum on
earth since the departure of my biological mum in 2007. Whenever she
tells me she doesn’t like a particular friend of mine, I may argue and
struggle to defend my friend but something always happens to show she
was right and I was wrong in my assessment.
“He who finds a wife finds a good thing…” – Proverbs 18:22
I believe this is the situation our
President, Muhammadu Buhari, and his beautiful wife, Aisha, have found
themselves now. A lot of water must have passed under the bridge before
the wife of a President would burst out openly and publicly on a global
platform like the BBC, even if it is the Hausa version.
It is a fact that Mrs Aisha Buhari
brought elegance and panache to the campaign of her husband. She worked
tirelessly and I believe she must have endured a lot during those days
of her husband’s horrendous tribulations. I particularly love the way
she has brought up their children as very responsible young people. We
must always give credit to our wives because they are always the ones
taking care of our kids when we have gone our different ways trying to
make a living and bring bread to the table.
The little I have seen of President
Buhari’s children suggests a close-knit family and a well-educated one
at that. This should make our President very proud and happy and
grateful to Allah and his wife of nearly three agonizing decades.
If such a lady has chosen to speak out
loud and clear about her frustration with the direction her husband’s
government is going, President Buhari should please listen to her
message and ignore the messenger. God has a way of reaching out and
ministering unto people. Aisha is the guardian angel sent to our
president in order to avert a cataclysmic fall a second time. History
has an uncanny way of repeating itself and I’m sure Lady Aisha can see a
lot of striking similarities between now and the past.
In law this would be called similar
facts. They do not bear repeating in full but it does not seem such a
huge coincidence of history that President Buhari came to power in on
the last day of 1983 in a military putsch, on the back of what was a
seemingly corrupt and inept government on an anti-corruption and war on
indiscipline platform.
Eerily in 2015, the same conditions
appear to have thrust the President back into power in what was a
democratic coup that swept an inept and corrupt government away on the
mantra of anti-corruption and change. Less than 18 months after the
President came to power as a military dictator there was great
disenchantment with his administration such that people were jubilant
after his fall. Now the position appears to be the same less than 18
months after assuming power. The president is now being seeing as a
maximum ruler who has lost the tremendous goodwill that greeted his
ascension to power for a second stint at governing this unruly country.
Indeed, it was with trepidation and
shock that I first read about the brave outburst of the wife of the
president, Mrs. Aisha Buhari as to the dangerous state of things in so
far as the President’s inner circle and his party, APC, are concerned.
I could not believe my eyes when I read that she had said the following in no particular order on a BBC Hausa Service interview:
“Whether he knows or he doesn’t know,
those who voted for him know. There is nothing I will tell him.” ( With
reference to those in his Government causing difficulties for the
President).
“He can see. Among all the people he
selected, if he is asked among 50 people, he doesn’t know 45. I don’t
know them despite staying with him for 27 years.”
“This worries us a lot now. Because they
believe they are the ones who suffered, but are nowhere today. Those
who didn’t do anything who don’t even have voter’s card are the ones in
position, ding everything.”
I’m almost certain she would have tried
to communicate with her husband and the following could have happened.
(a) She never got the audience required; (b) She got the audience she
sought but was told to mind her own business or (c) she got her few
minutes and was heard but was even insulted for daring to put her mouth
in matters of state. She probably reached out to some members of the new
mafia who she believes have virtually hypnotized and hijacked her
husband and she met a brick-wall there too.
If truth must be told, there is nothing
new or strange about what she has said in this apparently explosive
interview. The only difference this time is that this is coming from the
wife of the President. Even outsiders like us had raised these
observations in the last few months; that it seems some people are
misleading Buhari; that his team needs to be energized; that the ruling
party has set fire on its own roof by engaging in a war of attrition and
alienating their core members who fought tooth and nail to make a
Buhari Presidency possible after so many attempts; that a cabal has
ostensibly manifested itself in the Buhari administration; and so on.
Although Mrs Buhari categorically stated
that her husband had not told her whether he he would contest the 2019
elections or not she may have unwittingly let the cat out of the bag and
inadvertently exposed the plot of this cabal by saying she is not
likely to campaign for her husband in 2019 thus suggesting that the idea
of a bid for the Presidency in 2019 is already being contemplated.
Tellingly she stated:
“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 lije I did before. I
will never do it again.”
Of all the imagined sins of Mrs Buhari
in relation to this interview this may be the most injurious to the
Cabal’s camp than the issue of poor or sluggish governance. It is a
grave indictment when your wife who was such an avid and strong
campaigner for you a few years earlier says earnestly that she is fed up
and regrets her decision. This is obviously a view that Mrs Buhari
believes resonates with a lot of people as she went further to say that
“what I am afraid of is the rebellion of 15 million people” in apparent
reference to those who elected the President into power this time
around.
It is clear that the President must have
been taken totally aback by the acidic and acerbic criticism of his
administration by the person who should be his number one supporter.
His attempt at a jocular sidestep of a tsunamic eruption from his wife
has only served to ignite the debate and has somehow managed to portray
the President as a person ruling past his time. Women continue to make
great strides as world leaders, cue Angela Merkel of Germany, Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Cristina De Kirchner of Argentina, Sheikh
Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh, Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, Park
Geun-hye of South Korea, Erna Solberg of Norway,
Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Marie-Louise Preca of Malta, Kolinda
Grabar-Kitarovic of Croatia, Theresa May of Great Britain and hopefully
Hillary Clinton of the US, in the not too distant future. Closer to
home, there have recently been appointed as Prime Minister and President
respectively, Aminata Toure of Senegal and Catherine Samba-Panza of the
Central African Republic although their terms have ended. It is
therefore unfortunate that the President dismissed his wife as
perfunctorily as he did. The President said “I don’t know what party she
belongs to, but she belongs to my Kitchen and my living room and the
other room.” In my view, the President lost a good opportunity to shore
up his feminist credentials and deal with those of his critics who
would say he was talking like a typical Islamic fundamentalist, which I
believe the President is most assuredly not.
The president appears to be suggesting
that there is even greater discord in his home by saying that he does
not know what party his wife belongs to. It demonstrates a degree of
paranoia reminiscent of the Internet trolls and acolytes who support the
president and who consider every critic, whether constructive or
otherwise, as being anti-corruption or a member of the opposition.
But we must thank God for giving Nigeria
such a good lady in our presidential palace. It is sad that rather than
being appreciated for her candour and uncommon courage, critics have
unleashed a social media war on her. This is most unfortunate.
One, she is a Nigerian. Two, she is the
wife of our president. Three, rather she has done Nigeria a great
service by screaming before it is too late. No matter what happens, I
personally wish there are more of such visionary leaders around who do
not see power as an end in itself. Now that her husband has come out to
diss her before the whole world by saying she belongs in the kitchen and
his “other” room, she deserves our prayers and support.
The President did not stop at the one
attack on his wife. He effectively lumbered her with the tag of being
part of the opposition when he said “So I claim superior knowledge over
her and the rest of the opposition, because in the end, I have
succeeded. It is not easy to satisfy the whole Nigerian opposition
parties or to participate in the government”. The import of that
statement is that President Buhari believes in the course he is pursuing
and he thinks everything is on point. History will be his judge in this
respect but I hasten to add that right now a lot of Nigerians would
share his wife’s views about the state of the nation and not those of
the President.
I pray Baba would hearken to the voice
of reason that his wife represents and act in the best interest of
Nigeria and by implication himself.
Dele Momodu is a Nigerian journalist, publisher, and former presidential aspirant. He tweets from @delemomodu. This article is culled from ThisDay.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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