Four more years under President Patience Faka Jonathan?

We should be careful how we address, view and make jest of Mrs Patience Faka Jonathan. She is indeed our de facto president. We are the ones who sound stupid when we ask ‘her husband’ to talk to her, or to rein her in. How could we say things like that? Madam runs this country. […]

We should be careful how we address, view and make jest of Mrs Patience Faka Jonathan. She is indeed our de facto president. We are the ones who sound stupid when we ask ‘her husband’ to talk to her, or to rein her in. How could we say things like that? Madam runs this country. Hence I have hereby address her appropriately. I must also say, that over time I have always had respect for her. I felt that though she is deficient in the English grammar department, she had a stronger presence and personality than her husband. I just never took my analysis a little bit further to conclude, that she takes some of the most crucial decisions about Nigeria. I now believe, that even if Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s orders are sometimes ignored in the Villa, no one dares disobey Madam President!
Why did she convene several meetings over the Chibok affair? Why did she summon electees and appointees alike. Why did she take it upon herself to televise her own idea of a forensic investigation, when even her husband did not. We should have known. She runs Nigeria.
Critical questions like “Were girls really kidnapped in Chibok?”, “Should we bother to look for them?”, “How deeply should we get involved in the insurgency up north?”, “Are they not killing themselves and should we not allow them to continue?”, “All these critics, is it not because they hate us and want to take our position from us?”, “Should we contest for the next elections, or should we keep to the promises we made that we will serve one term?”, “Should we help in keeping Nigeria together or should we help split the country up after all they’ve been enjoying our ‘oyel’ for too long?”, “How many women should be in government and what roles should they play?”
As we go out to vote in this coming elections, we should note that a vote for PDP is actually a vote for the continuation of the presidency of Mrs Patience Jonathan.
Nothing wrong at all in that. She will be the first proper female president of Nigeria. Forget Turai. Forget the Mariams, whether Babangida or Abacha. Forget Stella too. They had influence, but they didn’t run Nigeria. This is because their husbands probably had careers or some financial standing before meeting their wives. That is very important and significant. Aunty Peshe is exploiting a lacuna. Who wouldn’t? And she is interpreting governance, simply the way she understands it. That is why it is important we analyse properly, what a vote for her means. It is terribly important to find out her views about sundry issues. And most of her views are out there in the open anyway.
I should have known. This thought built up in my mind as I watched the latest Father Mbaka tape. In it he was vehement in his accusations against “Mrs President”. He talked about the money sent to him, by “Mrs President”. He mentioned “Mrs President” perhaps ten times. How could I have missed this? Why did I join the horde castigating Goodluck Ebele when I should have directed my complaints elsewhere. It is Patience Jonathan whose strength and reach I should be analyzing. It is her that my eyes should be following for policy directions.
The campaigning season gave me an earlier insight. I don’t do much TV but luckily had some time to view the Bayelsa Campaign for PDP. There sat husband and wife, the first couple of Nigeria under a covered presidential canopy as the proceedings went on. Dr. Goodluck stared into space for what could have been two hours. He never turned his head towards his wife.
I wondered if they were quarreling.  When they were called to come to the stage, the same air of detachment could be felt. And each time Dr Goodluck finished speaking, he merely stepped aside, removed the microphone from the hold, and handed it impersonally, almost at arms length, to Madam.  Even in the recent photo show of fitness they did, a casual observer will notice that in the pictures where they touched, it wasn’t a fond hug but such as one will give someone one wouldn’t rather be with. Or perhaps it was ‘mutual respect’.
The real issue here is that in any husband and wife relationship where the wife is overly stronger than the husband, financially, psychologically, emotionally, and otherwise, over time, whatever they become, that wife will hold all the aces. Where she is tactless or “locally hardened”, or brash, she will show the aces and use it to devastating effect. I think that is what is at stake in Nigeria today.
Aunty Peshe, our president, has a stronger stage presence, a firmer command of her troops (including all ministers and governors belonging to their party in Nigeria – recall how governors and business moguls stood with his hands behind them in one of those pictures), she is a stronger mobiliser of people, and her opinions on politics and power seem better formed, for good or ill.
So, the argument on ground should be for us to interrogate what she thinks about other cogent issues such as:
1. What does she think about the accumulation of wealth?
 2. What does she think Nigeria should be doing with its foreign policy?
 3. What does she think about Nigeria as an entity?
 4. What does she think about other tribes and religions?
 5. What does she think about spirituality?
 6. Does she believe in voodoo? Does it work for her?
 7. Does she really believe women should overrun men in everything and stop ‘working’ in the kitchen as she has been preaching?
 8. What does she think an ideal family unit should look like?
 9. Does she believe women should take revenge for years of ill-treatment by oppressing their husbands?
 10. What does she think about men? Having probably gracefully sponsored her husband out of school and perhaps up to PhD level, does she understand what a ‘normal’ family in Nigeria is like?
 11. Would she encourage our women to be overly assertive at the homefront such as to never back down on anything to their husbands? Will her current rhetoric increase divorce rates and separation? Should women all become hustlers for positions, contracts and money?
 12. Is she in any way trying to exert some revenge on men, for any past ills done to her?
 13. With the recent exclamations from her that Buhari will jail more people than he did in 1983, does she have details of the corruption and stealing that have happened daily? Does she feel any remorse?
 14. Why does she think the only option for an incoming government asides from PDP, is to haul dozens of people into jail?  15. Would she be willing to hand over Nigeria back to us intact if she gets another four years of free reign, or does she believe it should be totally dismembered (especially given the need to cover the tracks and ensure she and others don’t go to jail – which she has been repeating everywhere now).
The bright side of this is that Madam Patience is so plain, and perhaps has not been tutored in the ambiguities that they call PhD, in some so-called Ivy League university abroad. Therefore, she says everything like she sees them! No pretenses. She shoots first, and apologises later. Or does not even bother to apologize at all. Have you seen Busari Adelakun, Lamidi Adedibu, perhaps the Great Gambo Sawaba, then you have seen our president. Those ones only existed in a different era.