First Lady Aisha Buhari is back to stir the hornet’s nest in typical fashion, because she never really left.
We should have known Mrs. Buhari was on to something when she posted a video of South African politician, Julius Malema, warning President Cyril Ramaphosa to be his own man and not yield to the several vested interests often found grovelling in the corridors of power.
“Listen to the collective wisdom of the people you are elected with”, Malema railed at Ramaphosa from the podium as parliament cheered. Malema is a handful, any day.
I have been told that Aisha Buhari tweets herself and that she vets all tweets posted by her aides when she isn't tweeting herself. This particular tweet, like all the others before it, was issued for maximum impact.
By posting that clip on her social media pages, Mrs. Buhari knew exactly what she was doing. Malema’s message vindicated her stance on her husband’s presidency. Mrs. Buhari it was who told the BBC in October of 2016, that her husband, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, is being held hostage by a cabal.
On Friday, January 19, 2018, Mrs. Buhari reposted video links wherein the speakers were taking President Buhari and the administration he heads, to the cleaners.
In October of 2017, Mrs. Buhari said the Aso Rock clinic which should be tending to the first family and the presidency, is so poorly equipped, it can’t boast of a syringe.
On October 7, 2018, Aisha Buhari launched a scathing attack on her husband’s political party, the APC, over developments in her home state of Adamawa.
And only last week, Mrs. Buhari called the Social Investment Program (SIP)—a signature initiative of her husband’s administration, a failure...a scam.
“I don’t know where the social investment worked. Maybe it worked out in some states. In my own state, only a local government benefited out of the 22 LGAs. I didn’t ask what happened and I don’t want to know but I can say it failed woefully in Kano. We have a lot of women who do business locally due to the cultural thing in the north, they are at home doing their businesses. Some are millionaires, some have thousands of Naira, they need the assistance but they did not get it. Most northern women do not belong to any market association
“I was expecting that N500 billion to be utilized in different methods in the north for the aim to be achieved. I don’t know the method they used but most of the northern states did not get it", Aisha said.
President Buhari’s social initiative revolves around doling out handouts, providing jobs for the unemployed, providing free meals for school kids and financially empowering market women and small business owners. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo never misses an opportunity to tell us how glorious these programs are. The man actually wears the programs on his sleeves.
The Buhari presidency often touts the programs as phenomenal successes. During every national broadcast since the social investment programs kicked off in the life of this administration, the president boasts about the impact of them all and devotes paragraphs to how life changing they have been. If no less a person than his wife says the programs have been monumental failures, then it shows that the president and his wife aren’t on the same page. Something Aisha appears to be telling us each time she’s before a microphone or cuddling her smartphone.
It also says something about the person and mind of Madam Aisha. If she can’t tell her husband these things under the sheets, what does she expect the rest of us—mere mortals—to do? If she can’t look her husband, the president, in the eye and tell him he’s failing at governance, who else does she think would be able to do so? Ibinabo from Bayelsa?
What exactly does the first family discuss when they sit at dinner?
Yes, there is a cabal. Yes, Aisha is fed up of this cabal. Yes, Aisha feels that this cabal is making her husband look bad in the eyes of the public. We all hate the cabal and have moaned about them for years. But who better to bring the cabal to heel than the Queen herself? Why does Aisha feel that throwing subliminals and shading the president on social media is a potent way to win this war with the cabals? If her husband doesn’t listen to her, how would he listen to us?
We are no longer willing to be part of Aisha’s battles and many games. We’ve helped her all these years. Not anymore. She’s First Lady and wife of the president for a reason. Let every (Wo)man carry their cross. We have a Champions League Final, Europa Cup Final and Big Brother Naija to watch.