I have always been ambivalent in my feelings about the wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari. In my opinion, she is as much of an ideal First Lady as she is a nightmare as the wife of the leader of a government. I explain. As First Lady, she is an epitome of grace, poise and a near-perfect Ambassador for the country. She is beautiful and a bit of an eloquent speaker when the topic is within her area of competence. A fiercely protective mother of 5 beautiful children, she checks all the boxes: beauty, compassion, intelligence, homemaker. I must confess that seeing her in the media as First Lady, especially in a grouping of other First Ladies, often makes me feel quite warm inside.
On the other hand, she could be quite infuriating in her other role as wife to the President and a leading figure of the ruling Party. Her penchant for airing the ‘dirty linen’ of the President’s family in public, thus creating fodder for the cannons of his political enemies often leaves me exasperated. Her public commentaries on State matters and issues have not always been helpful, even though many Nigerians welcome her vocal positions on controversial issues. Bringing points of disagreement with policy to the court of public opinion in the manner she often does is of no benefit to anybody (well, beyond those who will use such against her husband). The relationship between the wife of the erstwhile American President Trump and his wife Melania could hardly have been said to be cordial but you will have to do some real deep search to find evidence of her criticizing his government or policies in public. While I concede that some of the issues she reacts to could elicit quite strong emotions from most people, her position as First Lady places a burden for restraint on her which she sometimes dispenses with. Egged on by the adulation of a section of the public who might not always mean well for her husband (even if we concede that they mean well for the country), she often appears not to know when to draw the line between her public posturing and what is in the best interest of her husband and the Government he leads.
Her recent book launch left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. It took place at a time when her husband, the President, was away from his desk ostensibly to seek medical attention abroad. These are trying times for the country, times that require a display of great sobriety on the part of everybody but more especially from those at the helm of the Nation’s affairs. I have never been enamoured with the President’s medical trips abroad. I believe that unless a medical trip is taken for a life-threatening situation, then those in power need to make do with what is available locally for the time they are in office unless it is clearly a completely privately funded trip. It does not matter what they were doing before getting into office. Nobody conscripted them into office. They fought to get there (sometimes employing diabolical means to do so) so they should not behave like they are doing us a favour. It is worse when these trips are at the taxpayers’ expense (don’t ask me which taxpayers. It is still the country’s money, regardless of where it comes from). Going for a ‘routine medical check’ in the middle of our present economic and security challenges and all the other issues bedeviling the country is not the most confidence-building activity to have embarked upon. If it was for a more serious medical reason, then that should have been made clear to the citizens and no one in their right minds would have begrudged him the trip.
Which brings me back to the book launch. I, like a lot of Nigerians, find the timing of the launch quite intriguing. Being unwilling witnesses to the shenanigans that have gone on in the domestic wing of the Villa over the last 5 years, Nigerians can be forgiven for thinking that it was a bit curious that this jamboree had to take place when the person that should have been the numero uno cheerleader was conveniently outside the country. For a country of 200 million conspiracy theorists, this was too juicy to ignore. The rumour mill went berserk (rightly) and all sorts of theories started floating around. A needless distraction from the serious issues a government should be facing. And the event itself. The President was away. The Vice President and a good portion of the rest of Government relocated to the launch venue for the jamboree. Despite the conspicuous absence of the 1st Eleven of Nigeria’s Billionaire’s Club, Captains of industry were still well represented . The President sent in a goodwill message, eulogizing the First Lady in words that he probably couldn’t bring himself to say in person. The Chairman of the day, the leading Presidential Aspirant for 2023 (even though he is yet to officially declare his interest in the office) did the needful, both in flattery and in money terms. This might also explain the conspicuous absence of some of the personalities advertised to attend the event.
And the money came in. The announced donations from just the six public donors for the 46 page book came to N95 million. Without countenancing the unannounced donations from the Senate and the Governors Forum and all the other Special Guests, we already have the book raking in N2,065,217 per page! That in itself is an unbelievable return on whatever investment went into producing what does not appear to be a great work of intellectual rigour. By the time all donations have been collated, we could be talking in the region of a minimum of N5m/page! Even for someone who has lived a rather mundane life, a biography of 46 pages is unlikely to capture very much of her 50 years in any great detail, never mind a life as interesting as the First Lady’s. Even her adventures in the last 6 years as the First Lady of Nigeria (from an observer’s viewpoint) alone should take up well over 46 pages, not to talk of her entire 50 years on earth. Maybe the book involved some kind of novel creative writing that will need to be studied closely. A review of the book by members of the literary community will probably make the rounds soon.
At the end of it all, we need to get serious in Nigeria and be aware that the messages we send out as leaders and people of influence have wide-reaching and lasting consequences on the next generation. A question that should agitate the mind of the First Lady is this: were she not the wife of the President of the Federal Republic, would she be publishing a 46 page biography and expect anyone to treat it with any seriousness? The answer is obvious.