by Soma Oj.
There’s absolutely no drama as interesting as the theatrics of Nigerian politicians – look no further than the case of the questionable-degree-holder named Dino Melaye and his accidental foray into the world of music. Or the Reno Omokri (better known as Wendell Simlin) whose expertise with governance analytics curiously did not come to play when he served as a Special Adviser during President Goodluck Jonathan’s frustratingly incompetent tenure.
If you are not convinced, launch your Youtube player and search the name “Dame Patience Jonathan”. You will be treated to an array of theatrics that will leave you in stitches for days. Patience Jonathan is the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan and she inspired just as many laughs as much as she did enmity against both her person and that of her husband.
Segun Adeniyi, a journalist and author who had served as the press secretary to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua has a new book out today, Against The Run of Play. In it, he has published interviews he did with members of the administration between 2010 and 2015. And I make boldly to say that the revelations that we will find in this book will be like no other considering the tidbits that we have got from the snippets that have been revealed online already.
If there’s any thread that runs through the revelations that have been made so far, it’s that many who served in President Jonathan’s administration had a huge problem with his wife. So huge that they think that she cost him the 2015 election. “How,” you ask? It beats me too.
“I could not surrender my mandate to a woman (Patience) in Abuja, even if such a person was the wife of the President…that basically was my sin with Dame Patience Jonathan” says the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi in the book, implying that Patience ran Aso Rock and not President Goodluck.
The former Senate President, David Mark’s contribution to Mr Adeniyi’s book is another indication of how powerful many of our politicians believe the Dame was. He implied that President Jonathan lost the 2015 election because his wife turned him against his political friends; friends like himself and then Speaker of House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal.
Even Aminu Tambuwal, who is now the governor of Sokoto State had something to say about the former first lady in the book as regards her heavy-handed involvement in her husband’s leadership. Adeniyi writes of an anecdote that the Governor gave to explain how threatened she was about him:
“You this Hausa boy”, he says she called him to accuse him of to “bring down the government of my husband; you want to disgrace him out of power? Una no fit! God no go allow you.”
All of these may well be under one chapter of the book titled “The Dame” or maybe we should just peg it to the theatrics of these politicians. The second will be a viable option for anyone who knows how they dramatically speak about the non-issues when they do not want to address real ones. But one thing that cannot be denied is the fact that they must all believe that Patience Jonathan cost Goodluck Jonathan his sure-bet on the 2015 elections. Which is what stinks.
It stinks because it obviously means they are yet to believe in the fact that the electorate – the Nigerian people are the ones, the single factor that ensured President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience did not return to the Aso Rock. Nigerians voted him out. Plain and simple.
Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.
Of course, I have not seen a First Lady as impetuous as Dame Patience Jonathan. A First Lady that publicly snatched a microphone from a Governor mid-speech and stridently lambasted him in front of the people cannot be a political asset to the President. A First Lady who has the audacity to summon goverment officials from Borno to tongue-lash them cannot endear the populace to her husband. Individually, and collectively, all these several unconstitutional meddlesomeness of Dame Patience which the President failed to rein in projected the President as weak and effeminate thus creating a continuously swelling rank of opposition to his re-election bid among the victim-politicians and the bewildered public, and which the electorate effectively translated to a resounding defeat for him at the polls. That is the simple logic.