Analysis Of Aisha Buhari

Aisha Buhari’s insurgent self-assertion

By Alade Rotimi John

It is perhaps appropriate to begin with the view echoed approvingly by narrators, commentators and analysts with respect to the comments of Mrs. Aisha Buhari in her recent BBC interview to the effect that a new meaning (or, in fact, a refreshing niche) is being carved regarding the role of the wife of the President. The facile response of her husband rather than complement the deep thoughts of his wife, sadly casts a dark pall on a subject matter that is at once profound and vigorous. Aisha has bemoaned the absence or non-inclusion, in her husband’s government, of “Change!” elements representing the matrix of APC distinctiveness. She has metaphorically contrasted the scenario with

Buhari’s faux pas is rendered even more repulsive or distasteful as it was made in a clime that has long overcome the bogey of the presumed prowess of the male person in all spheres of life, including in “the other room”. Our exhibit is no other than the headship of affairs and events in such an advanced country as Germany by a ruthlessly efficient Mrs. Angela Merkel. At a most distinguished level, there is now an evolved distinction not glibly as between a man and a woman but between the creative energies, cultivated gravity and gracefulness as may exist between a particular man or a particular woman. No longer is the ambiguous lumping together of virtues or vices, prowess or un-skillfulness, performance or inefficiency as the preserve of one gender or the other. Buhari’s statement is a general reflection, back home, of the cultural predicament of the Nigerian woman who, even when she has been educated at great public expense, is perceived as only good for “the kitchen, the living room and the other room” - to be tucked away from public view. This attitude, expressedly shared by the leader of the world’s largest community

The suspicion is growing into a conviction that all the activity that goes on under the office of the First Lady is just to keep somebody busy and away from mischief. When the matter is truly considered, it may be apparent that there is more than a grain of truth in the assertion. However a First Lady who is able to contextualise her position through sustained engagement of the issues of her time, mobilising the machinery of state for resolving them and, in the end, giving a good account of her stewardship is sure to chart a new and refreshing course for us to follow. She will not be cast in the mould of an appendage of her husband or of an operator in “the other room” but as a fitting or disturbing presence towards good judgment, propriety and civilised behaviour in times of waywardness, desultoriness or loss of poise or purposeful direction.

Aisha Buhari is set to make a difference. She may have set the tone irreversibly. It is now left for her to map out strategies for confronting headlong or objectively some relevant national challenges of her time thereby setting herself and her period apart from the eras of visceral engagement with trifles, frivolities