Mrs. Buhari Will Vote For Jonathan - Obasi

As a father of five daughters, whenever I think of Muhammadu
Buhari, what comes to my mind is a regime that was
completely insensitive to the feminine gender.
First of all, Muhammadu Buhari had an all male cabinet at the
very time when the world had very good examples of the
sterling nature of females in power including the Iron Lady
herself, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher of The United Kingdom and
the phenomenal Indira Gandhi of India.
Does it mean that neither of these women could inspire Buhari
to have included even one woman in his cabinet?
All his ministers and advisers, his Military Governors and the
ambassadors he appointed were men!
And to rub salt to injury, Buhari is promising to close down the
office of the First Lady if he is elected! In the year 2015! Are
we moving forward or backward?
President Jonathan has been campaigning and everybody
sees his wife by his side. If I may ask, where was Mrs. Buhari
until recently presented for political purposes?
Is she wrapped up in seclusion somewhere? Does her
complete isolation from the public personae and campaigns of
her husband not indicate that he still does not think that
women have a role to play in government even if if is
ceremonial?
And nobody should tell me that it is unislamic to honour your
wife with a visible place by your side.
Is Buhari more Muslim than the people of Indonesia who
elected a woman to head their government in the person of
Megawati Sukarnoputri?
Is Buhari more Muslim than the people of Pakistan who
elected a woman to lead them in the person of the late Benazir
Bhutto?
I deliberately cited Indonesia and Pakistan because they are
the largest and second largest Muslim nations in the world
with deep Islamic traditions that date back to centuries.
If these nations can entrust women with political power at the
highest levels, why should Buhari tend to put women in the
background?
I dare say that it has not escaped the attention of Mrs. Buhari
that President Goodluck Jonathan has appointed more women
into his cabinet and into other high positions than any other
government before his.
Again, I suspect that Mrs. Buhari is not unaware of the respect
and recognition which the President accords his wife, Dame
Patience Jonathan.
Seeing how a secure man treats his wife and seeing how she
has been relegated not just to the background, but to
obscurity, I have a strong feeling that Mrs. Buhari will not vote
for her husband. Methinks President Jonathan would score an
unexpected vote from the Buhari household.
I mean, take a look at the campaign rallies of the All
Progressive Congress. How many women do we see in
prominent positions? Not many or not at all.
Look at the report we are reading from Taraba. On Christmas
Day, we were awaken with the headline ‘Taraba: Buhari rejects
female APC guber candidate’.
From the story, we understand that General Buhari was not
comfortable with the candidacy of Senator Aisha Jumai
Alhassan who made history as the first woman to win a
gubernatorial ticket on a major party and with a landslide at
that.
As a former gubernatorial candidate, I know what it takes to
win a party primary for the gubernatorial ticket. It is a heavy
weight fight in which the winner must defeat several heavy
weights.
After Senator Aisha Jumai Alhassan performed this feat,
instead of being congratulated, she met with rejection from
Buhari. It only goes to show how deep seated his prejudices
against women is.
If there were ever any doubts as to the role Buhari expects
from women that story wipes it away.
If the women of Nigeria want to undo whatever gains they
have made in the last four years where they have had 12
women appointed as ministers, in which they finally had entry
into the Nigerian Defense Academy courtesy of an Executive
Order issued by President Jonathan and the first female Chief
Justice of Nigeria appointed under President Jonathan, they
may go ahead and vote for Buhari.
But before they do so, they better ask their husbands to buy
air conditioners for their kitchens because they may be
spending the next four years there.
Chief(Dr.) Obasi Akpa Obasi is a former Gubernatorial
candidate of the Action Congress in Ebonyi state