NOT A ROLE MODEL •From her gruff and boorish conduct, Patience Jonathan is no exemplary First Lady At the height of General Ibrahim Babangida’s rule of total domination, Olanrewaju Adepoju, a Yoruba recording and performance poet in an LP, let out a biting rebuke, with an awesome pun on the Babangida name, a direct fallout from the June 12, 1993 presidential election annulment crisis: “Baba-ngida, Iya-ngida, Omo na ngida!” [Literally: “Daddy is involved, mummy is involved, and even the child is warming up to join the fray!”] In Julius Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the famed English playwright told a disapproving tale of how spousal excesses turned an otherwise good man, Macbeth, into a monster; by pushing him into regicide. Lady Macbeth’s continuous goading pushed Macbeth to kill King Duncan, his benefactor. But it also led the couple, who usurped the Scottish throne, to self-destroy. Both Adepoju and Shakespeare, therefore, spoke of the danger of excessive spousal interference in public office. In Adepoju’s view, the Babangida government was becoming a family affair, particularly given Mrs Maryam Babangida’s larger-than-life Better Life for Rural Women programme. Shakespeare also told a gripping dramatic tale of how Lady Macbeth destroyed her husband and herself. On the office and place of the First Lady, in Nigeria’s often troubled polity and politics, there perhaps would be no unanimity. But nobody can say First Lady intervention in governance is intrinsically evil. One thing is clear, though: the Constitution does not expressly make provision for the office. So many, clearly upset by the excesses of many a First Lady, have declared the office illegal. But that is not necessarily so. The office can earn itself a place in the mind of the populace by convention, if it is perceived to be of public good; its occupants comport themselves with decorum, honour and dignity; and are perceived to be assets, not liabilities, to the office of the President or Governor. This is more so, when the Constitution does not expressly preclude the office and activity of the First Lady. A caveat, here: this newspaper has, and indeed every Nigerian should have, the highest regard for the office of the Nigerian President; and that of the state Governor. Though no elected officers like their spouses, this honour and courtesy should extend to their wives (or husbands, if they are female); who are expected to reciprocate the honour with decorum and grace. It is on suspect comportment that First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, does a lot of disservice to what should be, if well handled, the institution of the First Lady. Even before the highly reported friction between President Goodluck Jonathan and Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Mrs Jonathan had mostly generated negative vibes. Many complain of her perceived lexical challenge, making insensitive statements and also her convoy shutting down every city or town she has visited. Lagosians have an abiding bitter tale to tell of her visits. So do domiciles of Port Harcourt; still talking of a city meltdown, just because the First Lady was in town for a private wedding. What was even more galling was the reported abandonment of a function by Governor Amaechi, just because the First Lady’s security cordon had blocked every place. That action, extremely provocative and insensitive, should be decried by all. The impunity itself is condemnable, coming from a person who is no constitutional official of the state. Besides, to think that Mrs Jonathan was openly rubbing in the quarrel between her husband, the president and Governor Amaechi, two state officials, was proxy battle most absurd. Aside, the question of waste: so, because Mrs Jonathan was visiting, literally the whole of the Police should choke the state, in a country whose parlous security requires every hand to be on deck? But it was on the score of careless and tactless talk that Mrs Jonathan disrespected the office of the Rivers State Governor and undermined the honour, integrity and majesty of the Nigerian Presidency. In the midst of the cream of Rivers State, Patience Jonathan lampooned the governor, claiming, not without open spite, that Port Harcourt, the state capital, had lost its glory. In an infantile bid to win friends for a most embarrassing and thoughtless talk, she compared the present to the tenure of some past governors who were present at the occasion, leaving her guests little choice but to nod in embarrassed agreement. That was bad grace of the highest order. It was not even the first time Mrs Jonathan would resort to such public lampoon of a sitting governor. The first was the open spat over the Okirika waterfront resettlement scheme. On that occasion, even with the governor present, Mrs Jonathan went on a rude and crude lecture binge, haranguing the governor on his faulty diction. Her only reasons were that she was the wife of the president and also an Okirika native who had returned in glory to pillory an errant governor. For the president to avert a constitutional crisis, he should call his spouse to order. Under the spirit of Nigeria’s federal Constitution, not even the president can talk down on a governor. The president deserves everyone’s respect. But he is no prefect over any governor. From the presidential fiasco arising from the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) election, it should be clear to the president by now that even he cannot enforce powers he does not have. If the president cannot do that, what gives his spouse the conceit that she could do so? President Jonathan must not give the impression that he has been emasculated by his beloved Dame. Even if that were true, that should start and end in the presidential court; and not extend to where it can cause the president avoidable trouble. Mrs Jonathan should change her rather reckless, rude and crude ways. Though every Nigerian has the bounden duty to respect the high office of President, the rude conduct of his spouse exasperates everyone to want to feel otherwise. All over, Mrs Jonathan appears a liability: her controversial promotion as Permanent Secretary in the Bayelsa State Civil Service is a huge dent to the anti-corruption war; her proxy battle on behalf of her husband is a great but needless tension to Nigeria’s delicate federalism; and her rather unguarded comments on her travails, while abroad on medical tourism, was a study in lack of grace. President Jonathan should move to save the dignity of his Presidency from spousal assault. Even after the Jonathans must have left, the Nigerian Presidency would still be there. It behoves them then to preserve it, as others before them had tried to do, warts and all. A First Lady should be seen for her good deeds, and seldom heard for her rude thoughts.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 02:00:58 +0000