STILL ON AISHA BUHARI

On 13th October 2016, the wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari granted an interview to the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC. In the translated and published version of the interview, Aisha Buhari was alleged to have expressed displeasure with the performance of her husband’s government.

She was quoted as saying, among other things….“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…..The president does not know 45 out of 50, for example, of the people he appointed and I don't know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years……Some people are sitting down in their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position……..You will know them (the people who hijacked Buhari’s government) if you watch television.”

Print, electronic and social media have since gone agog with this statement. Celebrity blogger, Linda Ikeji, in a blog post, alleged that some powerful forces had tried to prevail on the BBC not to air the interview but the global radio station declined. In faraway Germany where President Buhari had gone on official assignment, he was asked which party his wife belonged to. His answer which could be put down as a joke was “I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.” Mr. President’s response added more fuel to the raging controversy.

"It may well be that the President in his characteristic military fashion deployed a cultural uppercut to deflect his wife’s political frontal attack. In the mind of Mr. President, if Aisha has eaten 50 kobo bread, he himself has eaten N1.00 bread. Hence he brought a cultural angle into the mix to outflank Aisha."

As the Aisha interview and her husband’s jocular retort continue to generate commentaries everywhere, this writer is left amused at the level of hypocrisy on display by commentators. You would think it is the place of Nigerians to tell Mr. President where his wife should belong. Most piqued are the women folk who have refused to agree that their primary role is in the home. Ironically, it is the same women who will get very angry should any other person gets anywhere near their kitchen or bedroom. 

The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its sympathizers are practically having an organism over the Aisha-Buhari affair. To them Aisha is now a patriotic woman of unrivalled courage and uprightness. Within a blink of an eye Aisha, hitherto derided everywhere by PDP, has now become a paragon of integrity. She has suddenly been acquitted of Halliburton bribery charge; her handbag and wrist watch, which they had claimed cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, are no longer an issue. The woman they said photo-shopped a recent picture of herself with the wife of the President of United States of America, Michelle Obama with an intent to deceive Nigerians, has suddenly transformed into a saintly woman of virtue.

Suddenly feminists have invaded the blogosphere – thanks to Mr. President’s verbal indiscretion.  My bosom friend (let’s just call him Joe) who has never allowed his wife to work, or do anything to earn an income, now believes that the place of a woman is not limited to the kitchen and the bedroom. Senator Ben Murray Bruce posted on his Facebook page eulogizing his wife as his strength and partner who stands beside him everywhere he goes – never mind that his wife is hardly seen in public. This is the same Ben Bruce who earlier this year joined his colleagues to reject the gender equality bill in the Senate. 

But if you think Ben Bruce was hypocritical wait for Femi Fani Kayode (FFK) who opined that President Buhari’s comment about his wife Aisha is evidence that he was possessed by demons. This is the same Femi Fani Kayode who not too long ago reeled out stories of his romp escapades with countless women. The same Fani Kayode who has divorced his legally married wife and is presently living with another woman he has not married but who he gleefully refers to as his wife. The woman is currently nursing a baby by him. 

Because of Aisha Buhari my friends from across the River Niger have suddenly elevated the status of women to a prime position, but only on Facebook. The same people that only recently the Supreme Court had ruled against their age-old cultural practice barring the girl child from inheriting her deceased father’s properties because, in their wisdom, the girl child is a property of her husband whether she is married or not. As at now, there is no record that the landmark Supreme Court ruling has been obeyed anywhere across the Niger.

Hashtags proclaiming “I stand with Aisha” have also suddenly emerged to accentuate the level hypocrisy of hypocrisy everywhere. Only a few, like Nwada Blossom Chinedu has taken time to reflect deeply on Mr. President’s statement and concluded that there is even a spiritual and Biblical validation of the President's view. 

If Aisha has garnered support for her public umbrage against her husband, President Buhari, himself is not without his supporters too. Indeed the phalanx of forces that have taken positions in a matter between husband and wife is amusing. But perhaps the matter is not just a husband and wife affair insofar as it concerns the government under President Buhari’s watch. Which is why I will now add my own voice. I am of course the least qualified person to, as we say in our clime, “chuk" mouth in husband and wife affair.

"after 20 years of marriage I am myself convinced that a man's best friend is his wife."
 

Still, one cannot but note that neither Mr. President nor his wife is really wrong in their submission. What may not be proper, in my view, is the forum they have chosen to air their opinion. Nothing should justify a wife turning against her husband in an international forum. The day my wife publicly turns against me is the day I know that she is no longer with me. There are other avenues for a wife to reach out to her husband. The bedroom is the one, and if she is dexterous there, she should have no problem having her way.  The family is another; trusted friend, the opinion of whom the husband respect is yet another. Those who are saying that they stand with Aisha are either hypocritical or they would do same to their spouse.

Nevertheless, much as I do not buy the route Aisha has taken to talk about her husband’s cabinet, I do not also approve of Mr. President’s response even though I believe he was joking. We all know that a man who gave his daughters sound education, encouraged his wife to bag two post-graduate degrees, establish and manage a flourishing business, belong to various organizations, run an NGO and author books,  cannot exactly be said to believe that the place of women is in the kitchen and the bedroom. Still, how do you go to the capital of one of the world's most liberal democracies to voice the very anti-female gender sentiment they consider anathema?

It may well be that the President in his characteristic military fashion deployed a cultural uppercut to deflect his wife’s political frontal attack. In the mind of Mr. President, if Aisha has eaten 50 kobo bread, he himself has eaten N1.00 bread. Hence he brought a cultural angle into the mix to outflank Aisha.

But it will however be a tragic mistake to dismiss Aisha’s concerns with a wave of the hand.  Aisha’s allegation that a cabal has hijacked her husband's government and that things are not working as originally planned by the APC government should be seen as a woman’s concern for the place of her husband in history even though voiced in the wrong place. Aisha has also advised us to watch the television in order to know those who have hijacked her husband's government. By this I suppose she meant those constantly in the news. This narrows the list of suspects a bit in my opinion. There is no doubt that those constantly in the news are no more than the members of the Daura Mafia. The fact that one of the members actually tried to prevail on the BBC to kill the Aisha story lends credence to this submission.

All said and done, President Buhari should do well to look beyond Aisha's allegation. For all we know she has a point. I mean, we know how government is run in this country. As a private citizen during the June 12 1993 debacle Buhari himself in a speech he delivered in a meeting of the Association for Democracy and Good Governance in Nigeria, a body founded by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, admonished Nigerians to resist the spectre of the "hostage Presidency". He believed then that Babangida was forced by a cabal to annul the June 12 1993 election. 

This is all the more reason President Buhari must not dismiss the allegation of his wife. Power, and access to power, throws up all sorts of characters who will do anything including sabotaging the country to hold on to it. A man or woman you have trusted all your life may become something else on assuming power.

Aisha’s public outburst may not altogether be a product of frustration on account of having met a brick wall in the bedroom in her bid to convince the President. We all know we elected as president a man who is stubborn, strong willed and with an even stronger conviction and patriotism – attributes that certainly do have their advantages in a country such as ours.  Nonetheless, after 20 years of marriage I am myself convinced that a man's best friend is his wife.
 

That is as I see it.