Mrs Aisha Buhari doesn’t speak often but when she does, her comments are weighty. They are controversial and raise a lot of dust pointing and sometimes outrightly condemning her husband’s government. Some love her some hate her. But love or hate her, she has shown that she will not be confined to any room except the one she chooses for herself.
The office of the First Lady though unknown to the Nigerian Constitution has been a strong and powerful one in the nation’s history. It was popularised by late Mrs Maryam Babangida, wife of former Military leader, Gen Ibrahim Babangida who held sway in the 80s and early 90s.
Mrs Babangida brought glamour and panache to that office and through it affected the lives of women through her Better Life for Rural Women project. She was also a staunch supporter of her husband. Even in the heat of the annulment of the 1992 general elections, she never uttered a word of dissent or criticism against her husband.
When the Babangida’s regime was ousted from office by late Gen. Sani Abacha, Mrs Mariam Abacha toed the line of her predecessor in her role as First Lady. She was also her husband’s backbone. Her support of his regime was unflinching to the extent that she was believed by many to be the brain and power behind that regime.
The exploits of Dame Patience Jonathan as First Lady are still fresh in the minds of Nigerians. She was visible and very supportive of her husband. She was quick to rise to his defence when criticisms mounted. One could find many negative things to say about Dame Patience but not supporting her husband would not be one of them. The same with the other mentioned First Ladies.
However, when Rtd Gen Muhammadu Buhari assumed office as civilian President in 2015, he relegated the office of the First Lady to the background. He made it clear that his wife Mrs. Aisha Buhari remained just his wife and nothing else.
He made it obvious that madam was not to be part of his government in any capacity. Perhaps that was a mistake on the President’s part as it would appear that had he carried madam along or left her to busy herself with the office of the First Lady she would have little or no time to devote to his actions or lack of it.
Still, remain in the background madam did until sometime in 2016 when like a cobra, she raised her head and spewed out some serious criticisms about her husband’s government. Since then she has not stopped. In an interview on the BBC Hausa Service, Mrs Buhari made pronouncements that showed clearly she wasn’t happy the way things were going in her husband’s administration.
She complained about some of the appointees describing them as round pegs in square holes since according to her they were not part of the election campaigns and didn’t know the promises the party had made to Nigerians and that the President didn’t know them well enough to vouch for them. She also threatened not to be part of her husband’s 2019 campaign if things continued the way they were. “I have my own right to say how I feel about something. If things continue like this, I will not be part of any movement again. I need to work with the people that we started the journey collectively as a team so that we can achieve what we want to achieve, so that we can leave a legacy,” she said in that interview.
She was also quoted to have said that the interest of the 15 million Nigerians who voted for her husband was more important than that of her husband and that the administration was going into its second year without any indices of bettering the lives of Nigerian.
Mrs Aisha’s comments prompted the President into making the infamous statement about his wife belonging to the living room, the kitchen and the ‘other room.’ The other room or not, Aisha Buhari would not give up on her crusade to ensure Nigerians reap the dividends of democracy under her husband’s leadership. She, it was who raised the alarm that the Aso Rock hospital could not treat common malaria.
She is also known to lend her voice in support of her husband’s critics by retweeting such criticisms. Of note are her retweet of Senator Isa Misau’s, (Bauchi Central) accusation against the President whom he said was surrounding himself with incompetent persons citing as an example the new Director – General of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency, who was said to have failed his promotion examination as well as Senator Ben Murray Bruce, (Bayelsa East)condemnation of the President.
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Her actions have endeared her to some and also alienated her from some. Perhaps the most outspoken of her critics is Dr. Rueben Abati who insists that Mrs Buhari should take her place beside her husband and support him no matter what. In an opinion titled Aisha Buhari: The Critic in the other room, Dr. Abati noted that “the tradition has been for our First Ladies to stand by their husbands through thick and thin. Those whose husbands were Muslims, with perhaps the exception of Maryam Babangida, took the additional step of staying off the radar. Aisha Buahri is probably the first Nigerian First Lady to cultivate the public persona of an assertive, irreverent, independent-minded, critic-in-the-other-room, aggressive, resident and privileged “wailing wailer” in Aso Villa. I don’t consider this a praise-worthy development.”
To him, “Mrs Buhari’s conduct is unusual; it is shocking in its extra-ordinariness, to put it directly, it smacks of treachery and disloyalty.”
On the other side of the divide, however, are many who see Mrs Buhari’s outspokenness as what the Buhari-led APC government needs.
Reacting to Mrs Buhari’s rebroadcast of criticisms against her husband from her tweeter handle, Senator Bruce said, “let me say that by the actions and utterances of @aishmbuhari since she became Nigeria’s First Lady, it’s my opinion that she does not belong to the ‘other room.’ She is a very intelligent woman that has the capacity to lead and lead well. Your Excellency, please never be cowed!”
He finds support from Mr. Elijah Ayo Arowojolu, an on air personality and social critic who assessed Mrs. Aisha Buhari thus, “my response towards Mrs Buhari’s comments and actions is simply captured by this scripture (Proverbs 27:6) ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are lavish and deceitful.’ Aisha Buhari has proved to be a courageous and sincere woman who feels the burden of ordinary Nigerians. She has proved that she is not just a wife but a virtuous woman who realised that it is she and her children who would be the first victims in the event of defeat and failure.
“What a good wife owes her husband is truth. And that is what she tried to convey very many times but Buhari’s ears, eyes and heart are currently crowded by the flatteries and kisses of sycophants who are only protecting their own interest.
“Having failed in private to arouse him from amnesia in case he forgot those who assisted his dreams, she had no choice than to open up her frustrations with the man. I endorse her.”
Speaking along the same line, Mr. Emmanuel Ibeleme, an author and publisher, said, “Mrs. Aisha Buhari has done fairly well in spite of what anybody may say. She is somewhat detached and not as meddlesome as some others before her. I greatly approve of her sometimes dissenting views on PMB’s style of governance. She isn’t like others before her. She is remarkably different. I’ll be frank with you; Mrs Buhari would have been a far much better President than Buhari.”
In all these, there is a school of thought, which believes that Mrs Buhari criticisms of the president are not ordinary. This school believes that the words of the wife of the President, “makes one wonder if there is any truth to all the rumours that the man in Aso Villa is not the Buhari that was voted into power in 2015.” Giving her religious background, they say it is difficult to see speaking and going against her husband the way she has been doing. So is Mrs Buhari indirectly telling Nigerians something; they wondered.
Whatever Aisha Buhari’s game plan and motives are, only she can say for sure now. Whatever anybody else say is simply conjecture. Eventually, time and posterity will reveal if Mrs Buhari is a true patriot or turncoat?
