Until lately, Aisha Buhari was the “darling” of the opposition, as she presented herself as a “shadow cabinet” to or an in-house critic of her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) government that he heads.
In those days, the opposition didn’t need to do much to checkmate the government, as members were sure that Aisha would, sooner than later, throw a bombshell to titillate her husband’s critics, but discomfit the president, his administration and the APC.
Accordingly, they hailed her as a “truth teller”, “straight shooter” and the “right woman for the job.” Indeed, some Nigerians mooted the idea of President Buhari stepping aside for his wife to assume the reins of power. So, to diehard “Buharists/Buharideens” and APC members, Aisha was “working for the opposition” in a made-from-heaven “political romance.”
Her “homilies,” not reproduced here in chronological order, began in October 2016. Like a bolt out of the blue, she complained that the Buhari government was populated by “strangers”: people who didn’t work to install the administration.
In an interview with BBC Hausa, Aisha said a “few people” were behind the presidential appointments, stressing that, “the president does not know 45 out of 50 of the people he appointed and I don’t know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years.”
“Some people are sitting down in their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position,” she said, adding, “you will know them if you watch television.”
Due to the said anomaly, she vowed: “He (Buhari) is yet to tell me, but I have decided, as his wife, that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before. I will never do it again.”
Her damning assessment was sweet music to the disparate power blocs in the APC that felt shortchanged in the appointments, and to the opposition, which sensed an internal resistance to a second term bid by Buhari.
In October 2017, at a stakeholders’ meeting on reproductive health and nutrition at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Mrs. Buhari told the stunned audience that despite huge yearly budgets, the Aso Rock Clinic was bereft of basic medical essentials, such as equipment and drugs.
She related her experience at the supposed state-of-the-art hospital designed to cater to members of the Presidency and other high-profile Nigerians, but whose X-ray machine, she’s told, had packed up when she wanted to do a scan.
As she queried: “There is a lot of construction going on in this hospital, but there are no consumables, no single syringe there. What does that mean? Who will use the building? We have to be good in reasoning.”
Then came Aisha’s reiteration of a “cabal” in the Presidency, accusingly dictating and controlling the affairs of the government – a narrative that aligned perfectly with the view by many that Buhari was reportedly not in charge of his administration.
At another occasion, she proclaimed that, very soon, the “hyenas and jackals” in Buhari’s government would be flushed out – perhaps a hint of an imminent cabinet reshuffle, which never happened.
Following the August/September 2018 controversial primaries of the APC, Mrs. Buhari accused the party National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, of favouring some aspirants with “automatic tickets” while others, who paid the relevant fees for nomination, were shortchanged.
Many had surmised that she’s fighting on behalf of her brother, Mahmoud Ahmed, who failed to get the ticket for the governorship of Adamawa State. But she was also holding brief for the hundreds of aggrieved APC aspirants that didn’t scale the primaries.
Not the least of Aisha’s verdicts on her husband’s governance was her December 2018 complaint that two persons in government were sabotaging Buhari’s efforts, and “slowing down” what would have been many of his achievements since 2015.
At a National Women Leadership Summit, organised by ‘Project 4+4 for Buhari & Osinbajo 2019,’ in Abuja, she alleged that some politicians were going to the “two men” in the night “to beg for favours,” a situation she described as “disappointing.”
Again, it’s almost a rebuke of the Buhari government, prompting the president to deny the existence of such a “cabal” and urged Aisha to name any of his decisions and actions that were influenced by the “cabal” or hold her peace forever.
However, the main opposition candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, pounced on these accusations coming at the peak of electioneering for the
February 16, 2019 presidential poll, and pleaded with Aisha to mention the names of the two-man cabal.
As in her previous public censures, she didn’t identify the duo, but commended President Buhari “for doing well in delivering dividends of democracy to Nigerians even in the face of massive opposition.”
Thereafter, she did the unprecedented by composing a women and youth parallel but complementary campaign council that’s larger and more representative than the one launched by her husband for his re-election.
And to add insults to the opposition’s injury, Aisha tattooed four fingers of her hands with the slogan 4+4, indicating four more years for President Buhari in office. This taunting probably quickened the severance of her “political romance” with the opposition.
Now, the questions: Why has Aisha changed her mind on the promise to withhold endorsement of her husband for a second term in office? What has changed? Has Buhari remedied the anomalies she spotlighted in his governance style? To her, certainly yes! Hence, her commendation of him “for a job well done.”
Remarkably, an Esan proverb counsels: “It’s not what traders say when going to the market that they will repeat when returning.” To wit: Aisha cannot hold the same opinion about her husband in off season and during election period in which Buhari has a higher stake. Doing so would be to cut her nose to spite her face.
Thus, her volte-face is a big, and an enduring lesson for the opposition, as depicted in the maxim: “The tongue and teeth do quarrel but they know how to settle.” After all, Muhammadu and Aisha, as husband and wife, can resolve their differences, over form and style of his governance, without an interloping opposition.
![Akwa Ibom First Lady, Akpabio’s wife clash over reception of Aisha Buhari [Photos]](https://thenewsguru.ng/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Aisha-Buhari.jpg)
