The experience of power in Nigeria has been an overwhelming one marked by phases when it has kept to its age-long promise to corrupt and as well as its core characteristic of transience.
Like a snake, power does not simply shed its skin because it is in Nigeria. Rather, the Nigerian experience has been that power mutates, taking on a poisonous edge as if to adapt to the colours in Nigeria as surely and as speedily as a chameleon adapts to the colours of its environment. But unlike the chameleon which is far from dangerous except when its tongue moves with alarming acceleration to charm its prey, many of those who wield power in Nigeria are even more dangerous than they appear.
The saying that behind every successful man, there is a woman is one that is oft repeated in Nigeria but is yet to lose the kernel of truth it possesses maybe because its validity draws life from the nerve it touches especially in these days when women are unjustifiably relegated to the background and the relevance of their contributions to nation building squashed like eggs under the bootheels of patriarchy.
But if that aphorism is flipped, if viewed through another prism for just a second, can we say, and would we be right to say that behind every unsuccessful man there is a woman?
Sections 130 and 176 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria establish the offices of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Governor of a state respectively. The sections, lavish in their provisions, provide how two of the most powerful offices in the country can be filled and emptied and when.
The Constitution, Nigerias supreme law, falls sorrowfully silent on the place of the wife or husband of whoever it is that occupies the position of president or governor at any given time. However, given the spectacularly Nigerian ability to ape, invade and infuse, it has not taken any time for the women in the lives of the men who occupy Nigerias most powerful offices, (women mostly because Mrs. Virginia Etiaba is the only woman ever to have become governor in Nigeria), to carve out their own space. Whether they carve out their own niche too in the process is a question that has never been sufficiently answered. But behind the office of the first lady which is shorn of any legal leanings, power in Nigeria has been seriously used or abused as the case may be.
Nigeria has had some very colourful first ladies. No one can forget in a hurry the likes of Maryam Babangida, Turai Yar` Adua or the inimitable Patience Jonathan. At the level of states too, Nigeria has had some first ladies who were not shy to put themselves about as their husbands occupied elective offices.
Many of them have successfully rolled out programmes that have brought succor to their people while their husbands were in office. And because many of those programmes touched the lives of women and children who fall into the groups that have suffered the worst neglect as governance in Nigeria has lurched from bad to worse, the office has been predominantly beneficial.
But this is Nigeria where power intoxicates before it corrupts and there have been many instances, many quietly whispered, others loudly spoken, of when the wife of a sitting governor or president has by her indiscretion indicted her own spouse.
Under the late Mr. YarAdua for example, many Nigerians believed that his wife was the convener of the cabal that held an anxious country to ransom as an ailing president lay dying. In the days when Mr. Goodluck Jonathan was president of the country, his wifes public outbursts became as dreaded as they were dreadful.
Following a deeply embarrassing altercation which saw fists fly between the wife of his predecessor and the wife of one of the founders of his political party during his swearing in ceremony on March 17, 2022, Anambra State Governor Mr. Charles Soludo is reported to have scrapped the office of the First Lady in his state.
During his time as Governor of Anambra State, frontline presidential candidate Mr. Peter Obi was also said to have scrapped the office.
Does an office that has no legal legs beyond the liberties elected officers take which of course receives public funding do enough to justify its presence in the faces of Nigerians or is it just one more manifestation of the abuse of power by association in Nigeria?
Beyond the attention crucially beamed on women and children by some of the programmes and projects issuing from that office, the office may just be another cosmetic extension of the abuse of power in Nigeria.
Between the click of heels and the shadows cast by head gears, what do Nigerians get? Between those who share first offices at the national and state levels as intimately as they share bedrooms, what do Nigerians get saddled with?
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
