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| Chido Onumah | credits: File copy |
If there was any doubt that she is in
charge of the country, it was dispelled last week with what could easily
pass as a “presidential address” by Her Excellency, Dame (Dr.) Patience
Faka Jonathan.
I take issue with the way the First Lady
of the Federal Republic has carried herself since a combination of good
luck and political intrigue brought her to power as First Lady three
years ago.
From being the inconspicuous wife of a
vice-president whose main job was not remarkable, Mrs. Jonathan has
grown to the most powerful First Lady in the history of Nigeria and she
is blithely usurping the power of the President.
When the First Lady is more visible and
vocal than the President, then something is wrong. We thought we had it
bad with Turai Yar’Adua. While the late Umaru Yar’Adua was snoozing at
the Presidency, his wife and her cabal ran amok, almost imperilling the
country. When that grotesque absurdity came to an end in May 2010,
Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief. Little did they know that they would
look at the Turai Yar’Adua era with palpable nostalgia.
Of course, like all power-besotted
individuals, it is easy for the First Lady to attribute her power and
position to some divine force. And that was exactly what she did last
week when she gathered some “men and women of God” led by Bishop
God-do-well Awomapara for a state visit at the Presidential Villa. Well,
it looked like “God-did-well” for his faithful servants at the end of
the circus.
A few months ago, when Mrs. Jonathan
returned from her extended hospitalisation in Germany for an undisclosed
illness, she told us that she had been to the great beyond and back. We
were expecting “a new improved” and sober First Lady. If we expected
that experience to “teach her any lessons”, it clearly did not.
Rather, the First Lady has thrown
herself into the political fray, bestriding the political landscape like
a colossus and committing one political faux pas after another with
relish. Of course, as a Nigerian, the First Lady has interests. And
there is nothing wrong in seeking to advance those interests. But that
desire has to be channelled through her husband, her elected
representatives or relevant public office holders.
When Nigerians voted for Goodluck
Jonathan, they did not vote for him and his wife. Mrs. Jonathan was not
on the ballot box during the last general elections. That is the tough
lesson the First Lady has to learn and quickly too. It is sad enough
that we have to live with the quirks of a rudderless Presidency; to add
the inanities and meddlesomeness of the First Lady is undoubtedly
“double wahala”.
You can’t but pity Nigeria. Anyone who saw Mrs. Jonathan in her imperial majesty and splendour on the Nigerian Television Authority last
week reading the riot act to Nigerians on how to be good citizens and
followers would be pardoned if she was mistaken for the President and
Commander-in-Chief. The audacity is obvious. She can be a messiah or
saviour to those who are in search of earthly messiahs and saviours,
(One Evans Bipi even called her his “Jesus Christ”) but for goodness
sake, as a nation, we do not deserve this contempt for decency. Jonathan
and her Dame have taken this side-show that passes for governance too
far.
Now is the time to curtail the
paternalistic bravado of the First Lady. The “mummy culture” that allows
the First Lady to arrogate to herself the role of “Mother of the
nation” which makes every Nigerian a daughter or son, no matter how old
or highly placed, is patently undemocratic.
Reuben Abati, then chairman of the editorial board of The Guardian
and now spokesperson for the President and his First Lady, was right
when he wrote about Mrs. Jonathan’s three years ago. “Many of our
compatriots, particularly persons in positions of privilege and
authority confuse this – the freedom to be free – with the right to be
disagreeable”, Abati noted. “The truth is that democracy is about rights
and responsibilities, a democratic dispensation therefore cannot be a
licence for disagreeable conduct as a norm; just as the possession of
power in any form does not guarantee the right to be reckless or to
ignore the etiquette required of office holders”.
We know where Abati is eating from
today and his current position on the meddlesomeness of the First Lady,
but that does not vitiate his point. “When people suddenly find
themselves in a such position (as Mrs. Jonathan found herself in May
2010), prepared or unprepared, anywhere in the world, they are taken
through a crash programme in finishing and poise”, Abati wrote three
years in reference to the First Lady and her shenanigans during a visit
to her hometown in Okrika, Rivers State.
What a difference three years make! I am
not sure the First Lady has taken the crash programmme Abati
recommended three years ago. Which is why she has failed to realise, in
the words of Abati, “that being the wife of an important man comes with
serious responsibilities lest (you) sabotage the same person that (you)
should be supporting”.
Mrs. Jonathan is consciously or
unconsciously sabotaging President Jonathan. The President may decide
not to act for reasons best known to him. But as Abati noted, “The
Jonathans must be told that Nigeria does not have a co-Presidency. We
have only one president and his name is Goodluck Ebele Jonathan”.
From Abati, we learnt that, “Under the
Jonathan presidency, Dame Patience Jonathan even got a special
allocation in the original budget for the 2010 Golden Jubilee
anniversary whereas she has no official, financial reporting
responsibilities! The international standard is that spouses in these
circumstances must not only appear but be seen to be above board like
Caesar’s wife. They must not misbehave like Marie Antoinette”.
It is appalling that the Senators of the
Federal Republic, led by Ahmed Rufai Sani Yerima, voted to keep a
section of the constitution which is not only discriminatory but puts
the female child at the risk of early marriage and abuse and there
hasn’t been as much as a whimper from the First Lady, the so-called
Mother of the nation.
Yerima and the First Lady appear to have
something in common. While the apostle of child-bride – whose children
would likely be in elite schools outside Nigeria – seeks to undermine
the secularity of the country and imperil the future of our children,
our omnipresent First Lady has assumed powers not known to the
constitution.
Please, “Madam President”, listen to the wise counsel of Abati. Do not push your Goodluck!
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