Standard Bearer, Running Mate And Soul Mate

By Comrade Akido Agenro

The First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs. Patience Jonathan hails from Rivers State. She holds a B.Ed in Psychology from the University of Port Harcourt. A teacher by profession, she retired from her position as Permanent Secretary, Bayelsa State Ministry of Education only recently. She has two children. It has become relevant to place the profile of the wives of all the presidential candidates in the forthcoming elections in public domain considering the fact that the first lady wields enormous power and influence in the polity more than that which is allowed the vice president yet all eyes are focused on the running mate and the soul mate is foreshadowed and left in the background. This trend has to change. Moreover, beside every successful man there is a woman. The first lady is a direct beneficiary of the spoils of office, a factor that may be considered very relevant in a country where the president’s state of origin bears more relevance to his electoral fortunes than his cerebral endowment or ethical background.

What started in the early colonial period with Lady  Flora Lugard before gradually getting to Mrs. Flora Azikiwe at independence, then devolving to Mrs. Victoria Gowon whose role at this early stage was limited to accompanying their husbands to attend state functions occasionally has blossom to assume a quasi government functionary. The first lady’s responsibility in the government has gone beyond ceremonial engagement as the first ladies at federal, state and local government levels now pursue several pet projects where they deploy vast resources for the execution of one project or the other even when the Constitution does not recognize this office.

We all still remember vividly Mrs. Mariam Babangida’s Better Life for Rural Women Programme, Mariam Abacha’s Family Support Programme, Hon. Justice Fati Lami Abubakar’s Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative [WRAPA], Stella Obasanjo’s Child Trust Foundation [CTF], Hajia Turai Yar’Adua’s Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation and the sitting first lady, Dame Patience Goodluck Jonathan’s Women for Change and Development Initiative [WCPI]. If any of the aspirants has more than one wife he should come forward and tell the public which among the women will be fronting for the rest so that the favoured one should publish her résumé and later declare her assets upon the successful election of the president and the vice president.

The other day it took more than two weeks for Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress standard bearer to announce to an expectant public much like a bachelor who finally managed to find a woman to marry would to his anxious parents, that he had finally picked his running mate in the person of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. The public had been kept in suspense for days after Buhari had emerged victorious at the APC national convention held in Lagos on 8 December, 2014 expecting the retired general to introduce who will be pairing with him. But this would not come immediately as he was engaged in consultation with all stakeholders and being careful of who to choose considering the zoning procedure of the party among other geopolitical factors. Meanwhile, a few days earlier President Goodluck Jonathan had announced that he would stick with Namadi Sambo as vice president in the 14th February, 2015 presidential election following the ratification of his endorsement as the consensus candidate for the PDP at its national convention held in Abuja.

One is then left to wonder why politicians make so much fuss about a position which virtually has no responsibility attached but left to the discretion of the chief executive to assign any role which his good nature may commend. Come to look at it from the foregoing, the issue of the first lady’s position and that of the vice president bear similarity. The flag bearers of both parties, which are the leading parties in Nigeria are allowed free hand and without the overbearing influence of a party’s national working committee, party leaders, party elders etc. just as a man would be left to choose his spouse free of family interference underscores the fact that like a wife to the husband the vice president or deputy governor is a mere appendage to his principal. They are tied to the apron string of the chief executive of their respective positions.

In this particular instance, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari were allowed free hand to choose their running mates who in their estimation can cooperate with them to facilitate statecraft in the same way as they were allowed to find the spouses they believed they were compatible to live harmoniously with for the rest of their lives.  We recall the rancour that marked the relationship between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, the then Vice President Abubakar Atiku at the later part of that administration when Atiku had suddenly turned a “rebel” from the “my handbag” that Obasanjo used to affectionately refer to him.

A similar situation is replicated at the state level where the deputy governor is at the mercy of the governor who may out of his goodwill assign a number of responsibilities to him or may decide to allow him remain redundant as is common in many states in the federation, with a number of state deputy governors complaining that they have been sidelined. If asked, a few governors will not hesitate to admit that they would rather operate without a deputy nosing around the place. A good number of governors would rather have their wives, the First Lady of the state to represent them at official events than have the deputy governor stand in for them.

A case in point is the Ogun State deputy governor, Prince Segun Adesegun who of recent was forced to defect to another party on the grounds of highhandedness, neglect, denigration and redundancy inflicted on him by the governor, Ibikunle Amosun. We learnt the situation deteriorated to a point where the governor ordered him to be carrying files around like a common messenger. He is now in the revived Social Democratic Party (SDP) where he is pursuing his ambition to be a governor. After all, Governor Ibikunle Amosun experimented with various political parties before having his ambition actualized in the Action Congress of Nigeria [ACN] that has metamorphosed to the All Progressives Congress [APC]. Prince Segun Adesegun is thus poised to repeat an uncommon feat performed by Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala and few others, who became a governor after serving as a deputy governor under Senator Rasheed Ladoja in Oyo State.

In many states in Nigeria there is no love lost between the governors and their deputies though they are reluctant to admit this in public. It has been observed that it’s the rare trait of the deputy governor of Sokoto State, the mercurial Alhaji Mukhtari Shagari that saved the face-off that resulted from Governor Aliyu Wamakko’s defection to the APC from the PDP under whose platform he was elected together with Mukhtari who has refused to jump ship alongside the governor.

He decided to remain loyal to the party that brought him to limelight. He was lucky anyway to have retained his position since the last two years as other deputy governors that took a similar step ended up being impeached at the instigation of their bosses.

The vice president as is the deputy governor is a miserable bench warmer. Except for one or two instances of a president or governor delegating some measure of power to their deputy, it has always been a one-man show [the governor along with the wife of course] leaving the deputy to sing a song of lamentation. One recalls the role of the stern-looking Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, the designation for the position of the second in command under military regime who, although was in subordinate position to the Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, executed most of the administrative functions while the latter attended to ceremonial and policy engagements. In most of the other military regimes the second in command were virtually errand boys who just followed their principals around except where like the left hand they were assigned to do the dirty jobs of the Commander-in-Chief.

It was the restrictive role allotted to the vice president and the deputy governor that made former vice president of America, the country that Nigeria’s constitution is modelled after, John Garner, to observe that the vice-presidency is “the spare tire on the automobile of government. A no man’s land somewhere between the executive and the legislative branch and not worth a bucket of warm spit”. He bemoaned the fact that the vice president has “no arsenal from which to draw power”.

Unlike the vice president and deputy governor, the first lady cannot in anyway be described as a follow follow or sidon look type since she wields enormous influence both directly and indirectly on policy decisions through the husband and her contacts around the state or the entire country as the case may be. Hence the character of the first lady should be of interest to the electorate. The people would like to know if their prospective first lady is the submissive or the domineering type, the simple and easy going variety or the glamorous, fashionable and assertive type like Gucci Grace Mugabe [the reference to the Zimbabwean first lady because of her sense of fashion] and Mrs. Imelda Marcos, the former Philippine first lady, probably the most obsessed fashion conscious first lady ever.     

Although it’s an adjunct of the chief executive, the office of the first lady has passed the test of time and has come to stay. Being an institution established by convention it now constitutes an integral part of the presidency. The office is impacting on the lives of women; the youth and children in various ways through the NGO run by the wives of the president and the governors, organizations that continue to exist even after the founders have left the government. We, therefore, align ourselves with the position of the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan in which she condemned the statement by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari that he intends scrapping the office since it is not recognized by the Constitution and assign its responsibilities to the Ministry of Women Affairs. This will amount to taking the nation back to the era when women were restricted to the kitchen, when they were only to be seen but not heard.

Nongovernmental organizations carry out important functions in the society, roles which cannot be left to government agencies alone as the scope of their activities is limited to the human, financial and material resources available to them. Even if the entire national budget were allocated to the Ministry of Women Affairs alone there would still be room for NGOs to augment its programmes one way or the other. If the retired general has ever attended a fund-raising organized by a first lady he wouldn’t fail to note how contractors, suppliers, exporters, importers, political jobbers and the movers and shakers of industry struggle to outdo one another in their donations.

The NGOs in Nigeria have continued to make invaluable contributions to national development, championing the cause of justice, human rights, democracy, good governance, political participation, women/youth empowerment, HIV/AIDS awareness, road safety, family health, maternal care and several other endeavours too numerous to itemize here since there is no area of life in Nigeria as in every other part of the world where at least two or three NGOs have not emerged to complement the activity.

Only recently the First Lady of Anambra State, Mrs. Ebelechukwu Obiano visited Onitsha, Aguata, Amawbia Prisons and the Daughters of Charity Orphanage Home at Fegge in Onitsha where she donated cows, bags of rice, noodles, yams, beverages, soap and detergents. In his welcome address, the Deputy Comptroller of Prisons in charge of Amawbia Prison told Mrs Obiano: “You can’t believe that some inmates have not eaten because they are waiting for your food. We are happy that you came. We will use this opportunity to ask for your assistance to repair our water pumping machine as well as pay the fees of inmates who are due for junior WAEC exam,”. [P.M.NEWS, Monday, 29 December, 2014]. It’s worth noting that during her visit to the prisons, Mrs. Obiano expressed her concern over the large number of inmates awaiting trial and promised to bring their plight to the attention of the governor.  This was happening at the same time that Dame Patience Jonathan sent tons of fertilizer to farmers in Sokoto State courtesy of her NGO, Women for Change and Development Initiative [WCDI].

Everyone in the society including political leaders should learn to appreciate NGOs, boost their morale if not financial support and encourage their establishment and growth. Since first ladies are in a vantage position to raise funds, they should be encouraged to found as many nonprofit organizations as possible to add value to the lives of the people. At the end of the day it will be discovered that first ladies make their marks in the government than even the vice president.

•Agenro is Coordinator Democracy Orientation Movement, 18, James Street, Iju-Ishaga, Lagos. •E-mail: [email protected]