DAME Patience Faka Jonathan is the wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, the most maligned president that Nigeria has ever produced.

By virtue of being the wife of the president, she is the first lady, and she shares the humiliation that her husband is subjected to. Nigerians are not particularly enamoured about the office of the first lady which attained visible profile during the regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babanginda. His wife, Maryam had poise, elegance and grace.

Dame Patience Jonathan

She had charisma and she carried her beauty with humility.

Mrs. Ndidi Nneamaka Babangida had presence and intellect that has not been matched by any other first lady.

She made the office of the first lady visible with her Better Life for Rural Women Programme. The other women that came after her maintained visible presence in that position as the first lady.

But none of them has been as politically exposed and vibrant as Dame Patience Jonathan. She has a strong personality that evokes mixed emotions.

She is outspoken and unpretentious. She is not the type of woman male chauvinists and anachronistic men would find easy to accommodate.

She is not even the type of woman so many women with fickle minds would dare to come close to. Dame Patience Jonathan is a grassroots woman and she is not pretending about it.

The Genesis of attacks

Her disagreement with Governor Rotimi Amaechi over the latter’s plan to demolish the Okirika Waterfront led to series of events which her detractors capitalised on to savage her.

She has been called all sort of names and presented to the world as a dim witted woman who is unworthy of the office of a first lady.

Her husband was not equally spared.

Several unsavory details of their private life, as untrue and unfounded as they are have been hurled into the public place.

Even when she had health challenges, she was openly mocked by the same people that are crying blue murder that she said that Gen. Buhari is brain dead. She too was pronounced dead right in this country.

The gaffs and laughs

Dame carries herself with respect and dignity that is informed by her socio-cultural milieu. She has never told anybody that she has an upper class training and cultural exposure.

She is comfortable in her native Okrika world view.The initial attempts by her handlers to create an image of the Jones’ for the first Lady was like forcing her to live a false life which she could not adapt the pretences of public office at that level.

Her detractors cashed in on this to assail her with unprintable insults. The media was also at its best to portray her in less dignifying manners, Even if she were to falter in the art of speaking English Language, former US president Mr. G.W. Bush still pronounces INTERNET as INTERNETS. The Americans have a compendium of the Gaffs of their former president. This did not stop them from accord him due respect. Vice President Joe Biden is known for dropping verbal bombs when he speaks, still Americans accord him respect and try to manage him.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is loose cannon. Yet, nobody has crucified him.

She surrounded herself with people who took her out of her natural grassroots habitat.

This resulted in a few missteps which those who never liked her person capitalized on to mess her up in the media.

Chibok Girls saga

The Chibok girls saga brought a changed Dame Patience Jonathan as she was exposed to maximum embarrassment by Channel Television which chose to air her hysterical moments when she tried to interrogate the principal of the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, where over 200 girls were abducted by members of the Boko Haram Sect.

This was the stage of the crises when there were doubts how the students were left in the school without security and minders. None of the children or ward of staff of the school was taken away.

The Governor of Borno State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shettima, abdicated his responsibility to secure the school as he had earlier promised. This resulted in her widely publicised encounter with the principal of the school and the famous “Chai, There is God oo0” episode.

Campaign theme

This was the turning point in her life as the first lady as she made it clear to all and sundry that people should stop insulting her husband.

She made it known that no self respecting woman will sit back and watch people make fool of her husband because of his liberal disposition.

The President has been described as clueless drunk by people who are not even as intellectually endowed.

Even those who are intellectually endowed have called him Nebuchadnezzar. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo called him a mediocre, In fact members of the opposition party APC treated the President as the coward of Aso Rock and utmost disdain, but he choose to allow the freedom of speech to reign

The real Okirika woman in Dame Patience Jonathan came to town on February 4, 2015 at the Cenotaph, Asaba.

This was where she held the audience spell bound for 10 minutes with her own brand of delivering political sucker punch. She situated herself in grassroot language and tried to communicate with women. It was a vintage performance as she spoke extempore and took the opposition to the cleaners. She spoke, she danced and she rallied the women to cheer thunderously as one of their own was equal to the task. By the time her husband came on the stage, Dame had finished the business. Those that have followed her campaign to Cross River, Delta, Kogi, Sokoto states have seen a fire brand Dame Jonathan who is sharp witted, full of humor and hard hitting vibes. She has spoken at length without these gaffs that her detractors use to carpet her. She has shown deep understanding of issues and policies of government. Even those who try to portray her as a semi-illiterate are the same people that are defending Gen. Muhammed Buhari, who wants to be a president without education. Buhari has gone down in history as the most illiterate person to have become head of state in Nigeria and those who are promoting his presidential ambition wants to expose Nigeria to further opprobrium in this age and time.

Dame campaigns better than GEJ. She connects with the audience in the language they understand, she jibes and hits her opponents in a typical feminine way, she sings and dance to the delight of her audience. She is down to earth, articulate and armed with her facts. While she speaks for a maximum time of 60 minutes.without any script she goes through the protocol list of dignitaries in her campaign ground without faults.

Gen. Buhari simply mimes few words for five minutes and he is led off the stage closely guarded. He forgot his running mates name.He went to Al Jazeera and fumbled on the name of his party. He has contested three presidential elections but does not know the full meaning of INEC.

He got his name messed up in the Oluwole statement of result. General Buhari committed perjury because his brain failed him on where he kept his certificate, assuming he had one

On March 21, 2011, it was reported by Vanguard newspaper where Ashiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu said General Buhari is expired and has nothing to offer Nigerians. The same Tinubu said Nigeria needs leaders in the class of Sarkozy of France, David Cameron of Britain, Barack Obama of USA. This was four years ago. Is Ben. Buhari in the class of these men today. Where is the moral justification for making a 360 degrees change in focus.

Dele Momodu found Dame Jonathan an easy target but could not pick on the Lion of Bournville.

He wants to divert attention on that sleaze and serial defrauding of tax payers in . Even in Ghana where he lives, Ghanians will not promte an illiterate and a serial liar to become their president at 72. We know the things Dele had written on Buhari appalling human rights records. His attacks on Dame Jonathan simply reduces him to the little CHICHIDODO bird in Ayei Kwei Armah’ novel The Beautiful One Raemoir Not Born.

Let us eschew rabid ethnicity and narrow minded world view in dealing with national issues. If Chief M. K. O. Abiola was allowed to assume his mandate, Dele Momodu will not sit back and allow the opponents and the media savage whoever was presented to us as the first lady.

Mr. Humphrey Ifeanyi, a political analyst, wrote from Asaba, Delta State.