Aisha Buhari spits fire - says she may not support husband in 2019

President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha, is not one who is given to silly statements.

Since she became Nigeria’s First Lady in May 2015 she has kept a low profile, unlike many of her predecessors. So whenever she speaks, the nation listens.

However, no one expected the hard-hitting interview she granted the BBC a few days ago. Her words were so explosive that reports say the Presidency tried its best to stop the British broadcasters from airing the remaining part of the interview, to no avail. This is not Radio Nigeria, after all.

The amiable First Lady took a swipe at some of the President’s appointees who she said did not share the vision of his party (APC) and were appointed because of the influence of a “few people.”

“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.

She, however refused to mention any names, saying, “You will know them if you watch television.”

The BBC correspondent who conducted the interview says Mrs. Buhari’s outburst shows the level of discontent with the president’s leadership.

In his reaction to the interview, Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki said he had been vindicated by the First Lady’s revelations.

In the month of June, Saraki, in the heat of his corruption trial, claimed that a cabal had hijacked President Buhari’s government and that some individuals were running a “government within the government…to pursue their nefarious agenda.”

At the time, the Presidency had dismissed Saraki’s allegation as a figment of his imagination. But an elated Saraki said Mrs. Buhari’s open reservations about her husband’s appointees showed that his earlier argument had been made in good faith.

Mrs. Buhari also disclosed that the President’s cabinet is filled with people he barely knows. “The president does not know 45 out of 50, for example, of the people he appointed and I don’t know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years.”

The soft spoken 45-year-old Mrs. Buhari also refused to say if her husband was really in charge of his administration. “That is left for the people to decide,” she said.

She is so incensed with the situation that she said she does not know if she will support her husband’s reelection bid in 2019.

“He is yet to tell me (if he’ll seek re-election) 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,” she said.

However, Mrs. Buhari, whose grandfather was Nigeria’s first Minister of Defence, gave the administration a pass mark in the area of security, especially in the north-east.

“No one is complaining about being attacked in their own homes. Thankfully everyone can walk around freely, go to places of worship, etc. Even kids in Maiduguri have returned to schools,” she said.

Picture credit: Premium Times