Buhari’s camp jittery over Aisha’s 2019 outburst

How much damage has Aisha Buhari’s recent outburst over 2019 elections done to President Buhari’s political ambition, if any? This is the question currently agitating the minds of the President’s kitchen cabinet, prompting a flurry of activities to contain the perceived damage.

What is not in doubt is that there is palpable tension in the President’s camp over the interview granted by his wife, Hajia Aisha Buhari, to the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, bits of which began to make the rounds on Wednesday.

Mrs Buhari had, in a snippet of the interview published by the BBC and widely reported in the media, alluded to the fact that certain people in the All Progressives Congress, APC, were causing problems in the party and by extension, the Buhari administration. No names were mentioned by her.

She went further to state that most of the people appointed by her husband, and who were controlling things in government, never voted for him while those who suffered to ensure Buhari’s victory had been excluded and feeling alienated.

On Friday, Mrs Buhari got the President’s camp ruffled even further as BBC quoted her as having said that she might withdraw her support for the President’s second term bid except he overhauls his government as currently constituted.

Unconfirmed sources say top presidency aides are making frantic moves to stop further airing of the remaining part of the interview, scheduled for Saturday, 15th October.

Read also: AISHA BUHARI: Some of my husband’s appointees never voted for him

“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.

“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 added, “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.”

Mrs Buhari’s outburst, though indicative of a larger frustration within the inner caucus of the administration, came to many as a rude shock, given the President’s promise that the Office of the First Lady will not be a visible one in his administration.

It would be recalled that Nigerian First ladies have always wielded enormous powers within the polity, with the immediate past First Lady, Patience Jonathan, reputed to have had so much influence on her husband and even cabinet ministers during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

How Buhari’s camp hopes to do damage control over Aisha’s interview, which is currently dominating discourse in the media and on social media platforms, remains of interest to many.
By Timothy Enietan-Matthews….

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