So the Aisha Buhari BBC interview is the talk of the town at this moment.I find a few things interesting here.Aisha has obviously shown she is a brave woman by publicly airing these views on the BBC Hausa service.But should she be undermining her husband publicly?Because effectively that is what it sounds like if she is saying she won't campaign for her husband and rally the women round to vote like she did at the last election if things don't change.
The second thing the BBC interview highlights is the way the president perceives women.The president when confronted with what his wife said during the interview remarked,he does not know which party his wife belongs to,but he knows she belongs in her kitchen and the other room!
Haba Mr President! Now this could very much have been a joke from the president,it might have
been his way of trying to underplay and defuse the seriousness of the allegations and utterances of his wife Aisha during the BBC Hausa interview.But by saying this especially at a conference where the rest of the world were converged,he was effectively saying women were only good for the kitchen and her husband's bedroom.Ironically,the German chancellor Angela Merkel who is a woman was right next to him when he said this.She laughed,but i am sure she was not laughing inside,
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But going back to Aisha Buhari's interview,if she had all these things she was unhappy about,why didn't she call him privately and voice this grievances?Imagine the ammunition she has given the opposition by publicly saying her husband was not in control of his government?
And to make it worse she is saying she will not support his campaign in the next election if this continues.
Here are some of the highlighted quotes from the interview-
"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,"
And the most damning part of all was when she said she does not know yet if her husband will contest the 2019 election but-
"He 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."
This could be very damaging to the APC and Buhari himself.Never in the history of Nigeria has a 1st lady criticized her husband's leadership in strong words.
And what will this do to the Buhari's marriage?Surely the 1st lady would not be heading to that other room when her husband arrives from his German trip would she?There are meant to be fire works.
But on the whole ,what this BBC Hausa interview shows is that Aisha is ready to be a leader on her own.What are the odds that this woman with strong views and opinions who is bold enough to criticize even her own husband in public will not become Nigeria's first female president?