It was bemusing how President Muhammadu Buhari’s aide, Garba Shehu was frenetic in his rushed defense of his principal’s perceived gaffe in response to Aishatu Buhari’ s bitter, verbal media attack. In his improvised press statement Garba Shehu had said President Buhari’s retaliatory remarks on the impropriety of his wife’s indulgence in bitter criticism of his style of leadership was only to drive a point home over her status which restricts her to a kitchen, the living room and the other room. These are roles, Buhari had said, which prepare her to exist solely to take care of him. Shehu, however, had glibly waved off President Buhari’s spontaneous outbursts before the German Chancellor, Angela Markel, a distinguished and most powerful woman activist in Europe as an anecdote or wordplay intended to amuse and not to disparage his partner. Was it really a witticism or a joke cracked unwittingly? Shehu said it was a humorous riposte which culminated in quick reaction to an embarrassing question from a nosey German newsman.
President Buhari’s apt and precise retort was in consonance with the established African tradition where a woman is supposed to be seen and not heard. Even his pro-active feminist host, Markel had appreciated President Buhari’s standpoint, and is fully aware that in his own part of the world – Africa, the primary responsibility of married women is to look after their homes. She was not in the least embarrassed by President Buhari’s candid and responsible response to a question intended to subject him to public ridicule as was insinuated by cynics.
That, however, did not ridicule Mrs. Buhari and did not also suggest that her husband has a contempt or disdain for womankind, but was actually trying to acknowledge the frustration of his wife whom he had earlier begrudged the role of a First Lady, after assuming the mantle of leadership. Aisha Buhari was not happy with the proscription or banning of the Office of the First Lady, an illegitimate institution very much cherished and upheld by her predecessors. She did not also approve the idea of a change in her status, from the First Lady to that of ‘Wife of the President.’ So, in effect, President Buhari had simply reminded his spouse, after her ill-advised umbrage, that she still remains the Wife of a President and not the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
President Buhari had many reason to restrain his affable and gorgeous wife from going the ways of some previous first ladies that have brought shame and disgrace to their compromising husbands. He had vowed to fight corruption in all ramifications and did not want his wife or any member of his extended family for that matter, be involved in such unpleasant wave of indignity and infamy.
His fears were readily confirmed on the day he was inaugurated as president when his wife was caught in a controversial circumstance by incredulous camera crew wearing a wristwatch they swore was an expensive designer piece flaunted ostentatiously only by the wives of the super rich and mighty tycoons, even before the couple alighted from the swearing-in dais. Since President Buhari had decided to come to justice he must, therefore, come with clean hands. Accordingly, he will never condone anything that could besmear his heard-earned reputation as a righteous and an extremely honest person. In that respect the idea of First Lady was not his cup of tea, and he must ban it lest it provide encouragement, for others interested in using his wife as bait for their personal aggrandizement, to get at him.
In fact, the concept of First Ladyship, imported from Western democracies, is awfully abused in this country, and from all indications it is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good. Its practice is making everyone ill at ease. Initially the idea was to enable the wife of a President or governor accompany him to any state function where her presence will add color and glamour, but in Nigeria First Ladies have redefined that role by usurping the authority of their hubbies, performing executive functions, making unbudgeted expenditure and expropriating public property for their personal aggrandizement.
They had always been systematically liberating themselves from the control of their spouses, exerting themselves as independent partners that could do and undo. They emerge overnight as larger than life consorts, dwarfing the political stature of their men. They do not have anybody’s mandate to act as they wish, but are more powerful than their so-called elected mates. Their selfish and weird wishes were always deemed by their complacent husbands as directives which could not be contravened. That was what President Buhari rightly regarded as an unfortunate development which terribly negates the notion of governance and which also projects our leaders as totally hopeless in curbing their wives’ extravagant immoderation in the affairs of the state.
Although President Buhari loves and respects the basic rights of women, he doesn’t sanction their indulgence in activities that go beyond what is morally or socially acceptable especially those capable of pouring scorn on their status, bringing shame on to them. It is precisely for these reasons Aisha Buhari should not play the part of the First Lady, but that of Aso Rock’s elegant Kitchen Lady.
