Aisha M Buhari

Iwill ignore the pathetic level to which national discourse on all matters has degenerated. I want to speak about a sister. My gender and Aisha M Buhari’s are important, in part because so much of our lives are defined by being female. Every once in a while, women in Nigeria have grabbed national attention ,as wives of powerful men or associates of powerful men. None had acquired fame or notoriety without a strong relationship with a powerful man, or, to be more specific, the most powerful men in Nigeria. From the discreet but elegant power of late Maryam Babangida, to the quiet strength of Maryam Abacha, the pronounced shadows of Fati Abdussalam, the bubbling spirit and sad end of Stella Obasanjo, the fiery defences of Turai ‘Yar Adua, the loud presence of Patience Jonathan and now the steamroller character of Aisha Buhari, all wives of Presidents reflected and defined the character of their husbands’ leadership. Wives bear huge parts of the burdens on the way to the top, and in many instances, it only gets heavier when husbands are there.

I have written earlier on Mrs Buhari, basically commending her courage to stand up to a frightful handful of men who appear to have erected barricades around her husband and his administration, barricades that defined her place in all matters, including being wife of the president. I did not say she wins in her many skirmishes with people close and dear to her husband, and I did not suggest that fighting these forces ranged around her husband and against her desire to have a bigger say is the right thing to do. How would one wife know how another wife should fight inlaws, powerful and long-life associates, bloated political sharks who routinely prey on opportunities and weaknesses, and an army of hangers-on who think there is a right way and a wrong way for a HausaFulani Muslim wife to behave in all circumstances? There is no manual for being wife of a president whose journey had taken years of bitter setbacks, preceded by many other years when only a wife will know how difficult life was.

People who know her say Hajia Aisha is strong-willed and stubborn, much like the husband she married and walked through tough times and good times with. Many wives and mothers will understand the woman who defends her turf against encroachment by people who surface only in good times, but they also know how success often betrays marathoners and rewards short distance runners. Women are tough creatures. They may swim with the tide of success, but they never forget that the waters are never deep enough to ignore the bottom.

Few women experience life at the zenith, which may be the reasons why they are so vulnerable to manipulation, self-delusions and the damaging fights for space, influence and relevance. It could be the case that a good understanding of the spouse helps both presidents and wives maneuver between huge potholes that can cause massive damage to relationships. Courtiers take wives over, dictating unfamiliar protocols, identifying friends and enemies, raising the stakes in battles for which they are not held to account.

A wife that knows the strengths and weaknesses of her husband may seek to protect him from damage, but a president is lost as frustrated and alienated, fighting her husband’s tight circle one moment and taking the front row as his loyalist-inchief the next. She is like the lizard perched delicately at the mouth of the full waterguard: leave it, it could spoil the water; throw a stone to chase it away, you could break the guard.

For a woman reputed to have created many cushions around challenging circumstances before her husband became president, Hajia appears to have lowered her defences in the Villa. She ignored opening skirmishes which hinted that power will make her husband more vulnerable to his weaknesses as a person, and strong evidence that she cannot claim pride of place in managing him in the most competitive environment in the nation. She may have ignored the option of cultivating the influence of Malam Mamman Daura and the circle that revolves around him so that she secures space that allows both of them to live in peace and serve a president who apparently detests frictions and separating fights. Taking on her husband, his coterie of influentials, mischief makers, his relations, her relations, social media howling for muck, an establishment basically designed to weaken her, her own baggage and ambitions all at the same time is a poor strategy, even if it is forced on her. I will not swear that Aisha Buhari is a better politician than her husband.

As things stand, a hostile script written to rubbish President Buhari’s management capacities will be trashed by actual events. We are well past the gaffe about “the other room”, multiple public denunciations by Aisha Buhari over the hijacking of “her husband’s administration” by political journeymen (and women?) who did not know how the journey started, betrayal of trust of voters over election pledges and untidy squabbles with relations and long periods of absence from both spouses. The current undignified media exchanges over events long past and on rumoured plans for another marriage by the president cast a very dark shadow over President Buhari’s management of his family and intimate circles. If the president will be indifferent to, or incapable of resolving matters so personal to him that they become meals for a feeding frenzy by media of all type, the nation has to worry over its fate in his hands. Aisha M Buhari is not his Achilles heel. She is his soft underbelly that exposes a worrisome character streak that questions his leadership qualities.

Abubakar wrote this piece from Abuja