The Uncelebrated Figures Of The Nigerian Modern Democracy -By Olusegun Bamidele Abejide

VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS
A CASE STUDY OF THE FIRST LADY OF NIGERIA, MRS. AISHA BUHARI

The First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, in 2016 caught my attention when she picked on her husband, President Buhari, accusing him of poor governance and incompetence. She surprised many with the disapproval of her husband’s administration, leadership, and performance. She joined many Nigerians who were not pleased with the way her husband was running the country then. Let us quickly refresh our memories with the BBC interview that Mrs. Buhari had a year after her husband assumed office. In it, she lamented that the President’s government had been hijacked by some “few individuals.” She said the President did not know the large portion of the people that are administering the government. In other words, she was referring to those that are working for him. To be exact, in the BBC-Hausa interview with Naziru Mikailu, Mrs. Buhari stated: “The president does not know 45 out of 50 of the individuals he delegated to the government affairs.” She does not have any acquaintance with those people either, despite being his wife of 27 years. She further said: “people who did not share the vision of the ruling party, the All-Progressives Congress (APC) were as of now, named to top positions of the administration because of some “influential people” in the administration. That some people plunk down in their homes, with their arms folded, just for them to be called to come and head an organization or a ministerial position.”

Mrs. Aisha Buhari also uncovered the huge money extortion in her husband’s government. Responding to the analysis of misrepresentation on the N500 billion meant for social investment programs (SIP) of the government. Mrs. Buhari said the SIP failed in nearly all parts of the country, mostly in the northern states. Mrs. Buhari challenged the special adviser to the president on Social Investment Programs, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, of incompetence in her duty. “I was anticipating that the N500 billion should be used in various methods and for the purposes it was intended to accomplish. I don’t have the foggiest idea about the technique they used to utilize the money, yet the greater part of the northern states didn’t get it.” She spoke. “Possibly it worked in some certain states in the country. In my state, out of the twenty-two local governments, it was only one that benefitted. I did not ask what happened and I would prefer not to know, nonetheless, I can say that it failed woefully in Kano. More demoralizing is that the said funds were intended for the welfare of the poor people in the country of whom Mr. President had consistently professed to speak for or represent in the government.”

Shockingly, these poor Nigerians have been waiting endlessly for the social investment program that was guaranteed to them by President Buhari, just to have their expectations dashed as the money provided for the program was stolen according to the revelation of Mrs. Buhari. Mrs. Buhari’s choice to open up to the world about her worries stunned many individuals, both in the nation and worldwide. Yet it demonstrates the degree of discontent with the President’s administration. To be sincere on this, it is her fundamental right of choice to make these significant facts open to the public. As the President’s spouse, she was determined to see her husband serving Nigerians equally, instead of serving the interests of a few. Also, as a member of the party and a citizen of the country, she has the obligation and the right to be the whistle-blower for her compatriots. We should not overlook also that Mrs. Aisha Buhari campaigned vivaciously for Mr. President in the 2015 race, as she organized various town hall gatherings with women and youth associations across the nation. So, she is no doubt, a key stakeholder.

It was a significant blow to Mr. Buhari who has been known as an intense, no-nonsense person. Mrs. Buhari still remembered the yesteryears of glory her husband had when he was military head of state. How the Army carried out a coup in 1983 and General Muhammadu Buhari became the head of the nation and ran an authoritarian regime. General Buhari returned looted state assets; executed drug dealers caught and sent soldiers to the streets with whips to enforce traffic regulations. I still remember what he did to save the Nigeria’s economy from the decreasing oil prices that happened within his 20 months in power. That was when Nigerians were saying that foreigners were depriving them of work. The reaction to that was when Mr. Buhari and the late Idiagbon regime ordered an estimated 700,000 undocumented immigrants out of the country. Have we overlooked how he treated his administration or government workers who showed up late to their workplaces, how they had to perform squats or frog jump?

So, when President Jonathan was running a dysfunctional kind of regime that made some Nigerians sick at the time. Or do not you remember the growing corruption in the Jonathan administration! The Boko Haram syndrome under Jonathan’s administration! Now, to have someone like Mr. Buhari, a man known with his image of honesty and strictness–for all intents and purposes, was what the country needed as a savior at that time. Furthermore, his experience in the military was viewed as significant in the battle against Boko Haram. This made Nigerians to troop out in high numbers to vote in Buhari “to save Nigeria and Nigerians from the dungeon that Dr. Jonathan put us.”

And now, to have seen a man of such high caliber to have used his first four years as the president to consolidate his tribe alone was an embarrassment to me and I think same for Mrs. Buhari. Well, I still believe in him. Old soldier, they say, never dies. Maybe his giant will wake up this time around. And use his remaining four years to wipe out those embarrassments and at the same time saving the Mendicant populace. We need someone like him to help us out of our present abyss. Nigeria is in trouble. Compare to Nigeria of yesteryears; what a hell is this! Look at Ghana and Rwanda for Christ’s sake. Only the erudite will see the wisdom in Mrs. Aisha’s behavior. She is our mother; I doff my cap to her.

Mrs. Buhari was provoked to stand up with an end goal of ending those hegemonistic practices of some selfish individuals in the government so that the party followers, who contributed so immensely to the president’s election victory, could profit from their good deed. Nonetheless, as the closest individual to the President, she must have exhausted all opportunities before reprimanding the president in the media. This caught the attention of political analysts because this was something extraordinary in the Africa context, where such behavior from women is considered unorthodox. Bearing in mind what is generally known of First Ladies in different countries of the world; her act sets her apart and will be remembered for good. First Ladies, accordingly, are supposed to support their husbands even if they disagree politically. In some instances, First Ladies assume a low profile to avoid being dragged into making statements in public that will seem disagreeable with their husbands who are occupying the highest office. The remarks of Mrs. Buhari must have marked the defining moment for an administration that has unmistakably attempted to manage the economic recession of the country and the growing restlessness within the ruling party.

Let me bring this closer a bit. Conventionally, a husband would expect his wife to support him unconditionally especially in public. In the case of Mrs. Buhari, she went against the grain to assail the leadership of her husband, who she bears his name anyway. I am cocksure, it surprised you as well. Without doubt, her entire family is in APC, and she is supposed to be a behind-the-scenes policymaker. If her husband is someone that listens to her at the same time, she seems to be reminding her husband of his promises to Nigerians and the world, that; “I don’t belong to anybody; and I belong to everybody.” Anyway, I would not dwell so much on how Mrs. Buhari’s reaction shocked people like me. However, let us be insistent on how important she has been at holding her husband accountable by daringly pinpointing his weak spots in the handling of the affairs of the country. All said and done, I would like to recommend to the first lady to direct her attention at supporting female education which, from my perspective, is one of the problems in Nigeria especially the northern part of the country. If properly done, it will take Nigeria forward immensely.

OUR EYES IN THE PRESIDENCY

First, I would like to make it crystal clear that Mrs. Buhari is an independent thinker who has the right to express her opinions as she wishes. With that in mind, her decision to assail her husband’s administration should be looked at objectively so that we do not lose the basis for her protest against the APC-led government. Therefore, I would not expect anyone to think that the action to protest was meant to undermine or disrespect her husband; rather, it was to expose the cabal in her husband-led government. It was in no way a sign of a wife disrespecting her husband or a sign that she is in the opposition party. As far as this is concerned, I strongly believe that she understands her husband better than anyone else. This should lead us to conclude that when she speaks against his administration, it does not mean that she views him as completely weak; it is only that she thinks that the president needs to roll up his sleeves and fulfill the pledges he made to Nigerians in 2015.

In retrospect, the Niger Delta debacle and Boko Haram palavers are problems that the Buhari administration inherited. But since it promised to solve them forthwith, we trusted the president. As we have observed, the very challenges that the president was trusted to resolve, including the ravaging farmer-herders’ crises, are still facing us till now, making people more disillusioned than before. Ethnic restiveness, growing violence, shedding of innocent blood everywhere in the country, corruption and hopelessness are becoming more ingrained in our livelihoods. It seems that the president does not have a clue on how to solve those problems facing the country. Mrs. Buhari also became disillusioned like any other Nigerian who voted for President Buhari with the optimism of a dazzling future. We all trusted him to be a man that will reinforce our democracy and tackle head-on insecurity. As he took over from President Goodluck Jonathan, we grinned everywhere with our eyes set on a bright future. The glittering future seemed closer because we thought President Buhari, as we knew him previously, was the solution to our problems. Our hopes to restore security re-emerged and the fight against corruption was reignited. Insecurity and corruption were gradually washing down against the sanguinity that we cultivated for so long after a transition to democratic governance. Quintessentially, Mr. Buhari’s coming to power at first made us feel that things were going to change, but months afterward, we learned that he was not ready for the country, but for his close friends-sad indeed. In consequence, our hopes have been shattered, and we shared a common feeling with Mrs. Aisha Buhari that the president has seemingly turned against the very people he promised to serve selflessly when he took the reins of power in 2015.

When you hold high hopes and trust in someone, such expectations are generally high. That was the case of Nigerians then. Aisha believed that her husband would stick to the promises he made to Nigerians and work for them assiduously. Conversely, that was not the case in President Buhari’s first term. That was what prompted Aisha to take up issues with her husband. It was the right thing to do as the first lady or mother of Nigerians who has the interest of the masses at heart. Even though the consequences of her utterances against the president were undisclosed, it remained evident that Nigerians were angry at their President. Having a first lady speak publicly against her husband shows how she cares about her fellow citizens. Even though her husband downplayed her public eruptions, the message was delivered. I remember while in Germany with his host Chancellor Angela Merkel, journalists raised the question regarding overt criticism of President Buhari by his wife. His response was tragic. Instead of the President giving a plausible response, he disparagingly asserted that “she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.” This response was beneath the office of the President, even if some people treated it as humor. There is nothing humorous here. What I see here is what I can describe as downplaying some critical issues his wife was raising.

Publicly, the president underestimated the First Lady’s outbursts. I am persuaded to think that he must have pensively taken the point that things are not good on the ground. I think the president wanted to bring an abrupt end to a debate about what his wife was complaining about. However, there was this imperative point that Mrs. Buhari raised that I think must have woken up the President conceivably to get him serious on his job. His wife claimed that her husband was not in total control of his government, something that is deplorable and points to why he is failing. If the president does not know his appointees very well, it is something that should worry citizens. It means the person they elected as their leader is not competent enough to call the shots. This was a powerful assertion that helped Nigerians draw great insights into why President Buhari turned out to be a turncoat on the very people who trusted him the most. This revelation is a direct indictment of the President who knowingly or unknowingly, allowed powerful and influential individuals in his cabinet (tagged “the cabal”) to run the government against his own will, and against the interests of Nigerians.

This elite minority does not have the will of the people in mind at all, and it is the one that I think strangled Buhari’s efforts to constitute an effective government throughout his first term in the office. Since this did not happen, these appointees, who most likely represent the few people, failed the President and the country in its entirety. They felt that they were not accountable to the President, but themselves or their ethnic groups.

Empowerment of women and helping the Boko Haram victims was of utmost interest to Mrs. Buhari and Nigerian women. She promised to stand and fight for that rather than pamper her husband who unfortunately allowed ‘conmen’ to manipulate his first-term leadership. She preferred being called “Wife of The President” to “First Lady,” perhaps because she did not want to get involved in the drama that Nigerians were treated to by Buhari’s government. Being the First Lady is not merely a title, but it makes one feel that they have a responsibility to the country. Given that the Buhari administration was compromised from the onset, it was implausible to be part of it. If you believe that your vision and aspirations can be shattered by a certain selfish group of people, it is reasonable to do things that one considers valuable and transformational in society that will be positively remembered after you.

Her earlier delinking from the Buhari-led government and criticism affirms the left, right and center assertions that the once tough and ready-to-perform President had been cornered. When you have a First Lady who does not mince her words and believes in truth-telling, it allows the citizenry to understand the Presidency inside out. Behind the scenes, she must have tried to persuade her husband into focusing on the agenda that will benefit Nigerians. Since the president became compromised and succumbed to the persuasion of the establishment, it was reasonable to go public to disclose his government’s inadequacies. As First Lady, Aisha is obligated to protect her husband against those handlers she thinks are harmful to the President’s success. It is in that line that I think she had the honorary obligations to caution her husband in the appointment of great and credible citizens into his cabinet. She was right to be angry. It is only fair to speak out when she sees that there is something wrong happening while her husband does not take stern action that could restore order.

First Ladies do not need to hold public offices to influence policymaking in their husbands’ administrations. It is in this spirit that Mrs. Buhari chose to attack the administration for undermining party democracy through tampering their primary purposes and failing Nigerians. Her husband as a party leader should have focused on implementing the party’s manifesto and committed to serving the people. Aisha believed so much in serving Nigerians because she held a belief that her husband was the solution to the problems the country was facing. On this basis, I would always consider Aisha as a voice for the voiceless for speaking against misgovernment by her husband and his appointees on behalf of Nigerians.

It is clear that Mrs. Buhari stands for good leadership and service to the people. In her view, it was wrong for the President to promise people that he would tackle nepotism and corruption whilst appointing visionless and corruptible people to government. This kind of criticism ignites the impetus for people to hold their leaders accountable for whatever they do in office. Mrs. Buhari energized us to ask the government to do what is right. In fact, in 2016 she vowed that if her husband could not change tact, she was going to withdraw her support in his 2019 re-election bid. Fortunately, for the president, his wife supported his re-election by informing Nigerians that her husband is going to come back forcefully in his second term to fight poverty, corruption, nepotism, insecurity and to support the young men and women of the country in their bids for employment in the next term.

Time will tell. Perhaps President Buhari will save his face, image, and his tomorrow from those apparent failures in his first term. Probably this time around the few men who Aisha believed caged and emasculated her husband, making it hard for him to perform greatly to the expectation of Nigerians, will not be allowed to influence the appointment and the government affairs this second term. It is now upon the president to decide to be in charge of his government and correct his mistakes by nurturing democracy, eradicating poverty, rescuing the economy from imminent recession, tackling corruption and to restore security. If that is done, Mrs. Buhari and all Nigerians would possibly be a happy lot.

LEGACY IS ON EMPOWERING SOCIETY THROUGH WOMEN EDUCATION

Now, if the First lady, Aisha Buhari is committed to empowerment of Nigerian women and the youth, she should seize this opportunity to promote female education more than anything else. Girls in the north and south have equal abilities, and education is the only tool that will level the playing field for them. The northern part of the country has girls with huge abilities whose potentials can only be realized through education. The First Lady should champion the cause in her husband’s last term female education, particularly in Northern Nigeria. Doing so will leave an indelible mark on her history as someone who used her position to empower women in the country through education.

Let me take you down memory lane a bit, perhaps to put in perspective reasons why female education should be something of urgency by our First Lady before her husband leaves office. Commonly, men and women can be compared to two sides of a coin – without one, the other cannot exist. They help each other in the circle of life. A child’s education starts with his or her mother at home. Indira Gandhi argues, “When you educate a man, you have educated an individual, yet if you educate a woman, you have educated a whole family.” Along these lines, education ought to be given to both men and women in equal measure. Further, women are the mothers of generations and if they are denied education in a society, future generations will be uneducated as well. For this reason, the Greek warrior, Napoleon, once pointed out that “give me a few educated mothers; I shall give you a heroic race.” In the past, it was a social and basic practice for women not to get any education whatsoever. They are, for the most part not permitted to venture out of the four walls of their homes. Domestic works were essentially their portion throughout their entire life, then.

Surprisingly, in some parts of the world, men just do not like the idea that women should be educated like them. This should be considered a global problem that we must confront as a people if we have the determination to make the world a better place. It is an undeniable truth that in Nigeria, Boko Haram’s terrorist agenda is to see that no child, mostly women in Northern Nigeria gets an education. They specifically loathe the idea that women are going to school to acquire education which according to them is evil and immoral. You will wonder where such kind of reasoning emanated from, given that a society without education cannot make any substantive development. We cannot innovate or offer any skilled labor without education, and it is ridiculous to view education as something evil or a thing for men alone. Sadly, some people or communities in our country have no sense of the value that education offers to our society.

Let me make this one considerably basic: if women are educated, they can solve their household problems by themselves. Imagine a scenario where working men with families become handicapped in unfortunate accidents. In that situation, the complete burden of the family rests on the women. To meet this exigency, women should be educated and employed in different spheres. Women can work as teachers, doctors, lawyers, and administrators and in other careers that are largely dominated by men. It is presently accepted that women’s education can be useful in eradicating numerous social ills at any known point. Education helps people in every society to guarantee their privileges and to understand their potential in the political, economic, and social fields.

Education is known to be the best single most dominant approach to lifting society out of poverty, but such societies must include women to enjoy its full value. Education assumes an especially important role in society. Mrs. Buhari is an intelligent leader and fully understands and acknowledges that education is a fundamental right that no woman should be denied. Fundamentally, it ought to be an inherent piece of any procedure to address the sexual orientation-based discrimination against women and girls that remains prevalent in many societies. The accompanying connections will further clarify the need for women’s education. It is universally known that everybody has the right to education; this has been recognized since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. The right to free and compulsory primary education, without discrimination, has been reaffirmed in all major international human rights conventions. A significant number of these equivalent instruments encourage, yet do not ensure post-essential education. These rights have been additionally explained to address issues like quality and equity, pushing ahead the issue of what the privilege to education implies and investigating how it very well may be accomplished. At the minimum, states must guarantee that fundamental education is accessible, adequate, and adaptable for all.

We should ensure that girls in the north have access to education as other girls in the southern part of Nigeria and in the western world. As we consider the benefits of education, we must not lose sight on our culture and tradition. Some cultural and traditional practices stand between girls and their prospects for education. These lead to missed opportunities later on in life. Improving educational opportunities for girls and women create skills that enables them to make informed choices and impact community change in their society.
Another reason behind denying women and girls their entitlement to education is that those in power dread the powers that women will possess through education. There is still some protection from the possibility that young ladies or women in general can be trusted with education. Education evokes a few apprehensions. And now with globalization, the fear turns out to be considerably bigger to the loss of cultural identity, fear of moving towards the obscure or the undesirable, and the fear of dissolving many other norms.

Education is not luxury, but a basic need that both men and women need for their health and development. Specifically, basic education provides girls and women with an understanding of health, family planning, and nutrition, while giving them the power to choose over their own lives and bodies. Women’s education leads legitimately to better reproductive wellbeing. It also improves family, health and prosperity, economic advancement for the community and the general public. It is the key in the fight against the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Women are more than half of the world’s population. Sadly, equal opportunities have not been offered to them in several parts of the world. The development of feminine ideas has helped a lot and improved the condition of women across the world. The feminine ideas have given much importance to women’s education and our First Lady should see this as an opportunity to empower Nigerian girls and women. Educating girls is not a burden. It is clear in my mind that our First Lady believes it cannot and will not be a burden to educate girls. It is something that we should cherish and pool resources to support if we want to leave a mark in the lives of Nigerian women, particularly in the northern part of the country. In certain parts of the world many people do not know about women’s privileges. Along these lines, they believe that young girls are subordinate to young men, not realizing that young girls are of co-equal standard.

There has been tremendous progress in the field of media, information technology, science, and others. But unfortunately, there has not been coordinating advancement in the area of educating women up to the obligatory standards. Female proficiency and education have an immediate effect on the general improvement of a country and its development. The UNESCO studies demonstrate that female education in the developed nations is 96 percent while in developing nations, it is at 55 percent. However, in the underdeveloped nations like Nigeria or Africa in general, it is 27.9 percent. Countries with high levels of basic education do better economically, mostly, when female education goes in pari passu with that of men in society. If Nigeria wants to be one of the developed nations within Africa and in the world, it must concentrate on female education.

The major cause of all issues confronting women in Nigeria and other African countries is tied to education. If all women became educated, issues like domestic battering, infanticide, malnutrition of women and her child, female suicides, early marriage, rape, prostitution, and other related atrocities would significantly reduce, if not vanish, from our communities. Education gives us the fundamental capability to satisfy certain political, cultural, and economic needs. At each age and level of life, education improves the social and emotional intellectual advancement of women and empowers them to meet their fundamental needs of daily life. It brings a reduction in inequalities in society. Mahatma Gandhi once alluded to women as “respectable sex.” He said: “If our ladies are powerless in striking, they are strong in suffering.” He once depicted women as the epitome of sacrifice and motherhood. Women are no way different from men, except in marriage when the Godly orders must be followed – that the man is the head, it is time the contemporary women grappled with that. In marriage, he is the head, period.

As men are commonly feeble in showing love, women are commonly powerless in demonstrating physical norms as well. Women are solid in demonstrating affection, sacrifice, and sympathy. For instance, if we ask a child, “Who do you like the most, the person who corrects with adoration or the person who amends with beating,” the kid undoubtedly would say the person who rectifies with adoration. Since this is true, for what reason do we disregard the education of our women who are likely the most skilled in running the general public with their adoration and sacrifices? Do they not submit, cooperate, and collaborate, adjust to the given task from their high authority?

I am immensely proud of Nigeria as my country. I am so joyful to tell anyone that our mother tongues are of Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Efik, Fulde, Urhobo and others. We were conceived in our mothers’ bellies, have been naturally introduced to this world through them, have suckled their milk, have been ensured by her at the hour of anguish and perils and have been cherished by her constantly. Yet, we neglect them when we are adult and oppress them with regard to some specific uniformity. We see other ladies especially “white ladies” as our Demi-god. But we ill-treat ours and carry out moral, religious, political, cultural, educational, social, and economic injustice against them. Why?

We regularly overlook that we all originate from the womb of a woman. We are alive in light of their unequivocal love towards us. A woman can even love a terrorist who happens to be her child, who no other being can do. Having got these awesome women in our world, why are we overlooking the education of the female child in our society! Are we doing this deliberately without insight? The appropriate response is, we are doing it intentionally to keep up male domination. Therefore, men ought to have a receptive outlook to respect the adjustments in our society of educating female children. If only men participate, they can have every one of the women educated sooner than later. This would improve the economic wellbeing of our present and the future Nigerian mothers. Nobody walks with one leg. Nobody prides himself on one hand. For a man to be socially balanced in this contemporary time, he should marry an informed woman.

If a female child became educated, any place she goes and whichever field she works in, she will surely advance her intellectuality there. Similarly, if a woman becomes educated and gets married and has her children, she will understand what to be done at every stage. She will realize how to conscientiously raise a solid child or recognize what to do when such a child becomes sick or challenged in any way. They would additionally advance education for every one of their children through which the family and the general public would eventually benefit. However, if such a lady is not educated but gets married, she will be greatly handicapped. She would do anything without thinking and harm herself and her kids. And towards the end, the family would horrendously languish over it. As she is not educated, she would generally believe that education is just for the male and not for the female and in this way, instill in her female child that they are inferior as compared to their siblings.

Let me use the India preliminary educational system as an example here since India ranks in peer with Nigeria and Africa when it comes to female education. Article 45 of the Indian constitution says: “The State will endeavor to give, within ten years from the commencement of the constitution, free and obligatory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.” I believe the Nigerian constitution on education has a related Article of such. If not, it is the job of Mrs. Aisha Buhari to rise to this, rally the leadership, and make sure such is recommended and made available for our women in Nigeria. The Government alone does not have the sole responsibility in a situation like this; parents to play a major role. Parents should always support female education and ensure their girls go to school. To do so, we must educate them through songs, street plays and cultural dances in every village.

Are we ready to give our women, daughters, and sisters in our family proper education as we did to our male children? Can we begin to teach that women are not inferior to men in all ramifications in our families and our society? Can we treat them with equivalent right in our homes and at work? Can we allow ladies to exercise their privileges and authorities at home with no limitation?

If one female child is educated in a home, a family is certainly educated. The female barbarities will be eradicated, and women would be similarly competent to the posts which men hold and demonstrate equivalent rights. At that point, impeccable correspondence would be kept up among people in our informed society. If all these happen smoothly, Nigeria and Africa at large would become a developed nation in its social, political, economic, and cultural realm. Unto that goal, First Lady’s legacy is premised.

Dr. Olusegun Bamidele Abejide
Ambassador-at-Large
International Human Rights Commission (IHRC-USA & NIGERIA).

(Courtesy: A PRE-BOOK LAUNCH CHAPTER EDITION).