If you are passing through the city of Calabar on your way to Enugu, the other woman is Margaret Ekpo; a lawmaker and rights activist, who led a protest march against killings at the Enugu Coal Mine under the colonial government.
But if you are on your way to Lagos and anywhere near the Household of God, then the other woman is Hajia Gambo Sawaba; a politician and rights activist who won the G. R. A. C. E Karis Award for her advocacy against underage marriage in Northern Nigeria.
And if you are already in Lagos, some kilometers away from Abeokuta, the other woman is no other than Funmilayo Kuti; a teacher and rights activist, described by the West African Pilot in 1947 as the Lioness of Lisabi, for her fights against arbitrary taxation which led to the abdication of King Oba Ademola II in 1949.
And talking about abdications, President Muhammadu Buhari recently hinted on that possibility, when he said, ‘I felt like absconding,’ after taking office owing to the enormous pressure on him from several quarters including the BBOG group led by a contemporary activist and former World Bank Vice President, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili.
The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group is fiercely demanding a full restitution and rescue of over 219 young school girls taken from school by the menacing Boko Haram terrorist group in the Chibok community of rural Borno in 2014.
When the group started out, many did not give it a chance. Not a few Nigerians thought it to be a flash in the pan that will fizzle out with time. But the group stayed its course and against all odds, surpassed initial expectations.
It took the world by storm, when its #BringBackOurGirls went viral and enjoyed international acclaim with world leaders including President Barack Obama and wife, Michelle, holding placards in support of the agitation.
Day after day, many watched in subdued amazement as days emptied into weeks, and weeks into months, while the years went by under the scorching sun at the Unity Fountain of the FCT, where the group religiously sits out in protest of the abductions.
With the BBOG group, tenacity is the other woman. The agitation has not only won converts and support over the years but has won its battles, in and out of court against the federal government. It has managed to survive several police assaults and has outlived the PDP government of the immediate past Nigerian leader, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who took the group for granted and denied them a listening ear to his own peril.
The BBOG group brings to mind, the rare courage of a group of Jewish women who defied the Roman authorities to go to the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, in devotion to their teacher and spiritual leader on the third day of his death, at a time when leading disciples, like Simon Peter, could not risk being identified with him.
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It also brings to reckoning, the rare display of courage by Rosa Parks; a black American woman who refused to give up her seat in a public bus for a white supremacist against her convictions that all were created equal. This singular act of courage led to widespread protests and civil disobedience by blacks all over the US. The US Congress later dubbed her, the First Lady of Civil Rights, in honour of her liberation struggles.
And talking about a First Lady and her convictions, Aisha Buhari, the Nigerian First Lady is the other woman. In a BBC Hausa Service interview in 2016, she went against the norm to publicly express her sore displeasure with the poor state of government affairs under her husband.
It was Mrs. Buhari who made the difference in her husband’s fourth attempt at the presidency in 2015, after she joined his campaign train for the very first time and mounted the soapbox to rally Nigerian women and canvass votes for him. This was after Mr. Buhari had serially failed previous elections in 2003, 2007 and 2011 despite the collaborative efforts of his political allies and foot soldiers.
So when Mrs. Buhari called her husband out in that tackle that unsettled many a political watchers, and warned that she may not support him beyond 2019, the message was not vague and its implications were not lost in anyway on the president, the ruling party and the political establishment in Nigeria.
And in what looked like a follow up to Mrs. Buhari’s warning and yellow card on her husband, Mrs. Ezekwesili went on live television in the new year to issue President Buhari a straight red card, calling on every Nigerian to reject what she described as the twin evil of the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party that the Buhari administration now represents in poor leadership.
Like a bolt out of the blue, the Obiageli audacity blew the cover off the national silence on President Buhari’s political future, with former President Olusegun Obasanjo releasing a 13 page document which has come to be known as Obasanjo’s Letter Bomb, asking Mr. Buhari not to seek re-election in 2019 and by effect, reducing what was left of the Buhari national appeal to a house of cards.
Like Caesar, the Roman general and statesman, will General Buhari ignore the warnings of his better half? Caesar could not go pass his larger than life ego when his wife, Calpurnia, told him that she had the premonition that all was not well and begged him in vain, to excuse himself from going to the Senate with his praise singers, on the pretext that he had a fever.
Or will Mr. Buhari heed the advice of an angry supporter and a Twitter follower of his daughter, Zahra, who set the social media on fire with her epic reply, ‘Tell your father to leave after now,’ when Zahra had asked to know what she will want her father to do for Nigeria.
Will President Muhammadu Buhari leave in 2019? Will the septuagenarian go home at the end of his tenure to be with his family and spend quality time with his grandchildren, sharing with them memories of his military days, prison experience and his incursion into politics?
Be it the Obiageli avalanche, the Aisha hiccups, the scorn of an angry supporter on Twitter or the groaning of a bitter widow in the killing fields of Benue, good lessons abound in history why President Muhammadu Buhari should not for any reason underestimate the strength of a woman and completely dismiss their sentiment regarding his political future.
Nseabasi S. J. King wrote in from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State and can be reached on [email protected]
