By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo

The first time was two years ago. She went on rampage on the  BBC. Mouths were left agape.  She said her husband had performed abysmally. She said she would neither campaign for nor vote for him if he failed to wake up.

Buhari-Aisha

She was indignant. She said Baboons had come to seize and ruin everything the Monkeys had worked for. Many concluded that she was on her way out of the union. We wouldn’t know how much of his  wrath she incurred. But we know now that it left no indelible consequences.

The president  had waved off suggestions that his wife’s vote of no confidence on the government was calamitous. He opined that his wife should concentrate on the duties for which she was married. And he spelt them out as  those  duties performed in the kitchen and the ‘other room’—bedroom. The tone of the president showed a little irritation.

For an eternally taciturn man that was loud. But for a man reputed for severity, the lack of visible consequence that followed was baffling large hardheartedness, inexplicable humility.

He was lampooned  for making remarks that promoted gender inequality. A few wondered why he failed to understand that he had to publicly answer to the charges raised by his wife  which  he didn’t manage to keep within the bedroom in the first place. The charges of incompetence  by the opposition could be politics. But charges of incompetence against a president by his incumbent  wife cannot be frivolous  charges. And  to dismiss them by deeming women as people generally ill equipped to understand, discuss and assess government policies was shortsighted, atrocious.

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The First  Lady’s bewildering  frankness elicited thumps up everywhere and within the corridors of power. Many who helped the president to power had been sidelined. The first lady’s boldness shocked  political leaders across all parties.  Female spouses of political leaders and religious leaders  are generally too docile to question their husbands choices publicly.  The society expects from them only subservience.  So while some deemed Aisha  brave others saw her bravery as rascality permitted by  Buhari’s weakness. For a man, who many think flirts with tyranny such weakness could then  be virtuous. But is it?

The first lady’s forthrightness marked her out as someone who could be trusted to stay with the truth. The first lady had publicly  questioned the humiliation  meted out to those who had helped win the election.  She must know those who came to Daura to resurrect the dead political career of her husband.

But  the damage wasn’t her allegations of her husbands’ apparent lack of loyalty to  his benefactors. She was emphatic  that the government had been hijacked by questionable characters whom her husband appointed into high places.

Those who were fanatical about the president’s righteousness dismissed her as a meddlesome interloper. They  suggested that she was throwing tantrums. They said her influence had been circumscribed by the President’s avowed uprightness and inflexibility. Some other first ladies in times past could call highly placed government officials and issue orders to them directly. But Buhari is Buhari. And won’t take that.

The wives of Muslim leaders are often expected to take a cultural back seat. But neither in Babagida nor in Abacha, nor in Yaradua  did that hold true. The wives of all those former presidents wielded enormous influences at their peaks.

So is it possible that Aisha is rebellious because she hasn’t been given the space due her?

I think the first lady has been propelled more by selflessness and forthrightness. I think she is brave, a few personal motivations notwithstanding.

Two years ago, Governor  Fayose let his mouth loose.  He told the world that Aisha Buhari was a fugitive of the law. He swore that Aisha Buhari  was wanted by the FBI in the United States. The First Lady responded by an angry tweet. Her fiery response showed a certain spontaneity that could not be fully trammelled by political sensitivity. There is fire beneath her beautiful, well manicured exterior.

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When Buhari took ill and flew to London, and she stayed home, tongues wagged. Conspiracy theorists said she had been banned from wifely duties. Then, she traveled to London. They said she had to seek approval from the DSS DG to see her husband. Then, she came back and declared that the lion would return imminently to sack the jackals and hyenas that had turned the corridors of power into their den.

Everyone who had believed the existence of a strangulating  cabal rejoiced. Buhari returned and failed to shuffle his cabinet,  and failed to dislodge the officials whom his wife had described as  deadly parasites in the heart of power. Many other women would have felt humiliated. But Aisha carried on with a smile on her face.

The elections drew near. And Aisha Buhari  endorsed her husband. She said the government had performed. Those who had listened to her on BBC and who  had heard her promise a dislodgment of the cabal raised eye brows and sneered. Some of those who had been sidelined by her husband had been placated. But  many of them had left the party angrily. The cabal  had lost one of its pillars, accidentally. But nothing of the clean sweep she had bragged about came close to happening. She seemed inconsequential.

She must have bitten her lips in disappointment.  But  she isn’t one to suffer  too long in silence.  This time she was plaintive. A few weeks ago, she wanted to know where all the men in Nigeria had gone. And  perhaps what they had done with their manhood. She wondered how they had watched two or three persons hijack the government that 15 million people helped to build with their votes.

In that midday SOS, Aisha  all but declared her husband, with all the powers vested in him, helpless. The real impotence was not that of the Nigerian men but that of the man in power. It is praiseworthy that the first lady has such freedom, and such courage. But many  have wondered afresh  if the president’s indifference to his wife complaints is actually  tolerance  and therefore commendable, or criminal negligence and therefore condemnable.

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We once witnessed the former DG DSS literally rubbish the authority of the president by attacking his choice of EFCC chairman publicly. And we saw the DSS then obstruct the EFCC in public while the president looked away. Some said it was the president’s non interference policy at work. They said it was his way of building institutions. Others said it was unpardonable chaos at the centre of the seat of power. They said it was evidence the president wasn’t in control.

The recent outburst of the first lady has lent credence to the argument that the president doesn’t have a firm grip on the presidency.

Is it possible that Aisha Buhari’s call on the men of Nigeria to rescue the government from the strangle hold of a few carnivorous men is alarmist? Is it possible that she is jostling for power?  Is it possible that her ability to voice opposition to the president is evidence of the impotence she has referred to?

One thing is clear. Buhari can do better by putting his house, all his houses, and  all the rooms, in better order. He should  leave no one in doubt as to who is actually in charge, at all times.