SO IT WAS JONATHAN THAT INVENTED THE OFFICE OF FIRST LADY?

Those who know me or are among the thousands from around the world that view my blog postings at www.pauluwadima.blogspot.com can testify that I do not give water to President Goodluck Jonathan or his wife Patience Jonathan. Ahead of 2015 presidential election I already has a person I am supporting and ready to work for, thus this intervention should not been as another praise singer seeking Aso Rock financial rehabilitation. I am also not unmindful that many writers have written themselves to plump jobs with the powers that be. But that is a story for another day. Sorry for the digression.  The president like other presidents before him be it military or civilians have failed Nigeria and Nigerians. No former head of state was free from the malady of poor and bad leadership that have been inflicted on Nigerians. Poor leadership has over the years crippled the country. But this is about the “office” of the First Lady.

Lately the office of the First Lady has come into focus and all of a sudden the office of the first lady has become so much evil that almost all the problems in Nigeria originated from that office. The First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan has been alleged to be the unseen hand behind the political upheaval bedevilling Rivers State. Even respected statesmen like Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka and human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, have now made her the escape goat in Rivers crisis and the human rights lawyer has threatened to head to court if the First Lady ever blocks traffic in any major city that she visits. With all the brouhaha over Patience Jonathan, you will be pardoned if you think that Jonathan invented that office. Perhaps that is why I am a writer and commentator on national and international affairs: I hate injustice and double standard. I detest hypocrisy especially from those one holds in high esteem.

Even those who couldn’t utter a word when former First Lady, Turai Yar’Adua held this country to ransom over the health status of her ailing husband, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua have suddenly found their voices. At the time Nigerians wanted to know whether Yar’Adua health condition would still allow him to perform his functions as the president of the country, the First Lady kept the country in the dark. She was not forthcoming on the issue until the president finally succumbed to the cold hand of death. That was the time Soyinka and co should have called for that office which is not even recognised in the constitution to be scrapped altogether. But they didn’t do that, but now that a minority is a First Lady, everybody is shouting blue murder over the office. First Lady Maryam Babangida was even more powerful than Patience Jonathan. Maryam Babangida was credited to have been instrumental to the creation of Delta State(her state of origin) with Asaba(her home town) as its capital. She was not a member of the Armed Forces Ruling Council that was presided over by her husband, General Ibrahim Babangida. She created Better Life for Rural Women, and the edifice that she built using tax payers money  still stands today as the Centre for Women Development at Area 11, Abuja. Soyinka served the Babangida administration whether he admits it or not through his pet project, Federal Road Safety Commission(FRSC). It was not on record that Soyinka protested the influence of Maryam on the Babangida administration. Even in the United States where we copied the First Ladyism like the presidential system which we also borrowed from them, you cannot totally detach the office of the First Lady from the office of her husband. That is why in presidential primaries the wife of the president is often a key note speaker in such an occasion. In fact a flip flop by a First Lady can cause her husband the job. But if due to our peculiar culture where men want women to be seen and not heard and we decide that the office should not exist, we can outlaw it, especially with so many anti-Jonathan lawmakers in the National Assembly , it may get express passage. Of course it would be abolished with that of the office of First Ladies in the states.