First lady Aisha buhari for vice President in 2019

Editor’s note: Nigerians have reacted in different ways to the controversial comments between President Muhammadu Buhari and his wife, Aisha Buhari.

Gbemiga Olakunle, the general secretary of the National Prayer Movement, shares her views on the interview, supposing that Mrs Buhari may run for the post of a vice president in 2019.

Aisha Buhari, the wife of the president
The president’s wife’, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, by virtue of her recent BBC interview has chosen to stand out and be counted on the side of history. Actually, she has said nothing new.

The President’s wife only re-echoed and confirmed what some of us have been saying/writing through the media (electronic print and social and the social. Mrs. Buhari’s recent comments only lend credence to weighty issues which we have raised in some of our previous articles while scrutinizing government’s policies/actions or inactions in the last 17 months or so.

Readers may recall that immediately President Muhammadu Buhari’s Inaugration Speech went on air and was widely published with the catchy phrase of ‘ I belong to nobody. I belong everybody’ , we quickly wrote a review of that speech and pointed out that ‘ President Buhari belongs to somebody’ .

And, this article was widely published on the social media and some of our popular national dailies.
People found it difficult to believe us until the President began to assemble his team, starting, from his key Principal Staff and his Special Advisers and other top aides. Some keen political watchers cried foul and the Presidency quickly calmed frayed nerves by saying that the observed lapses or lopsidedness in political appointments would soon be addressed in subsequent appointments through ministerial portfolios and headship of Agencies.
Unfortunately what eventually came out through subsequent federal appointments was to confirm the Nigerian electorate’s worst fear – the suspected exclusion of certain groups of people from key federal appointments/establishments. We also pointed this out through another widely published article entitled ‘President Buhari’s lopsided appointments’.

And, regarding the suspected hijacking of the reins of power by a certain cabal which the President’s wife referred to, this issue was also vividly captured through another write-up captioned ‘The mystery of the hijackers in the APC’ and most recently, through another article entitled “Is APC still the Ruling Party?” which was published in the Guest Column of the Blueprint newspaper edition of Wednesday, September 21, 2016, page 2 and possibly other national newspapers. Readers may google these articles with the author’s name or visit our blog directly – gbemigaolakunle.blogspot.com to confirm our assertion that our amiable president’s wife was not saying anything new in her widely published BBC interview. What was only special, dramatic or pragmatic about the new dimension is given to the viewpoints raised is the new source from which they are coming now.

The president’s wife, under normal circumstances, should be his best friend and closest confidant. But, she must have realized that certain powers had come in-between them as lovers and best of friends and hence the need for her to cry out and alert the public on the circumstances that the President has found himself.

Mrs. Buhari, together with her children and in-laws, are Mr. President’s inner ears. The information that the security agencies and other top aides try to shield away from their principal’s ears are readily in the domain of the President’s family members through their friends or contacts in the social/religious or social media.

As a matter of fact, these family members including Mrs. Aisha Buhari as their arrow-head, have higher stakes in the success or failure of Mr. President than any political appointee or top aide, no matter how highly placed. When the chips are down, any political appointee can jump out from any boat that may be in distress. It is the President’s family members that may eventually swim or sink with him. And, that is the scenario that we observed that Mrs. Aisha is trying to portray and prevent in the interview.

With this kind of foresight and love to prevent her husband from a possible political shipwreck, Mrs. Buhari has demonstrated that she is actually a political asset to her husband and not just an ordinary asset to the President’s kitchen, living room and the other room.

It is on this note that we observe and are of the opinion that Mrs. Aisha Buhari will be a good material for the post of vice president, provided her husband is not interested in running for a second term in office. There is no doubt that wife of the president will continue to maintain her roles in the kitchen, the living room and especially the other room that the President has referred to.  Mrs. Buhari herself has earlier said that she still cooks her husband’s food and that she has not abdicated her position in the kitchen despite the presence of the President’s cooks and stewards.

Those officials cater for the guests to the villa while the President eats from her pot. And so, the President has nothing to fear if he should allow his wife to share her kitchen’s works with the demands of the Office of the Vice President. But, if the President has the intention to run again in 2019, then he has everything to gain by listening to the issues/viewpoints raised in the interview by his wife, which have been widely applauded by Nigerians.

To do otherwise may be tantamount to committing political suicide, despite sincere warnings from loved ones.
The president’s wife’s outbursts are in good faith and not otherwise as some political hawks and self-styled analysts may misconstrue/misrepresent or misinterpret them.

If God wills and the necessary political, religious and family costs are cleared, Aisha Buhari for vice-president in 2019 is a possibility.

This is more so when this indomitable woman is a First Degree holder in Public Administration from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) and also a Master’s Degree holder in International Relations and Strategic Studies from the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). And so, with the blessing and the support of her husband, she is qualified to run or vie for any political office in the country. In the meantime, with this insider’s views as revealed by the President’s only wife, the President and his family members deserve our sincere prayers as co-stakeholders in the Nigeria project so that the nation can attain her optimum installed capacities/potentials politically, economically, technologically/scientifically and socially in the comity of nations.

This request is in line with the Biblical injunction contained in I Timothy 2:1-4, KJV. It is in our own interests to heed the said Biblical injunction quoted herein.”I exhort, therefore, that first of all supplications, prayers, intercession, and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings (Presidents), and all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour: Who will have all men (irrespective of their positions or status) to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth”.

And, if we disobey this injunction, there is the high probability that some higher forces which the president may not have control over, may hijack the good intentions of his government to the detriment or chagrin of the general masses. However, there is a CAVEAT in Mrs. Aisha Buhari’s smooth running for the post of Vice-Presidency in 2019 even if the aforementioned hurdles are cleared. And that is, she needs to run on a joint – ticket with a male Southern Christian who has a divine mandate.