First Ladies as public Inconvenience

At the opening of the 52nd annual general meeting of the Nigerian Bar Association at the International Conference Centre in Abuja on Monday, 27 August 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan claimed he was the most criticised president in the world. “I think I am the most criticised President in the whole world, but I want to tell this audience that before I leave I will be the most praised President,” he said. That statement was vigorously contested in the public sphere. I would argue that Jonathan forgot to include his wife Patience Jonathan as one of the most criticised First Ladies. Between 1985 and 2013, Nigeria has been decorated with some colourful and controversial First Ladies such as Maryam Babangida (known in her time as “Maryam the First”), her successor Maryam Abacha (otherwise known as “Maryam the Second”), Turai Yar’Adua, and now Patience Jonathan. These First Ladies were heavily criticised either for their extravagant fashion or their money-guzzling pet projects or their inappropriate conduct and utterances. I cannot recall any previous First Lady who attracted as much condemnation in the public domain as Mrs Jonathan currently does. Of course, Maryam Babangida was criticised roundly for her “Better Life for Rural Women” project. For Mrs Patience Jonathan, it is a different matter. Everything she says or touches is guaranteed to cause outrage or outcry in the public. She must be wondering what she could do or say that would appeal to the people. Despite frequent, strong and sustained defence of her actions by her team of assistants, Mrs Jonathan is still perceived as an irritant by the public. Perhaps there are valid reasons for public disapproval of her ways. Perhaps the criticisms are unwarranted. The press and the people have consistently accused Mrs Jonathan of lack of discretion relating to inappropriate conduct, improper utterances, and involvement in excesses that belittle the high office of president occupied by her husband. The charges levelled against Mrs Jonathan constitute the basis of no fewer than three editorial comments published by two newspapers – The Guardian and the Punch -- between July 2012 and July 2013. In an editorial entitled “Patience Jonathan’s excesses must be curbed”, the Punch (1 July 2013) wrote: “Each time the wife of the President, Patience Jonathan, hits the road with her long motorcade, including bulletproof and bombproof limousines, or is having a whale of a time at an event, drivers and commuters who find themselves on her routes always have to live with the bitter experience of the encounter. As police empty the roads of traffic, forcing drivers to wait as her glamorous convoy drifts by, motorists are trapped in traffic for hours on end, while social and economic life of the affected community is brought to a halt abruptly.” The paper recalled that a similar situation occurred when Mrs Jonathan visited Lagos in 2012 to express appreciation to various women organisations for casting their votes for her husband in the 2011 presidential election. The Punch observed that at the time, “Lagos residents were subjected to an unprecedented road blockade, which gave rise to an unnerving five-hour traffic that grounded all human and economic activities”.   Again, the Punch recalled in that editorial another indiscretion committed by Mrs Jonathan, such as when she breached protocol by hopping off the presidential jet during Jonathan’s visit to the United States in September 2012. As soon as she alighted from the jet, Mrs Jonathan shook hands with officials standing by the airport tarmac while Jonathan, the president, was still getting off the aircraft. Mrs Jonathan’s infringement of protocol occurred in a foreign land but she was most recently accused by Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State who told a group of church leaders how Mrs Jonathan snubbed him and the code of behaviour designed to protect official visitors during her visit to Port Harcourt. Like the Punch, The Guardian’s editorial comment on Mrs Jonathan’s behaviour was also unfavourable. In an editorial entitled “First Lady On An Illegal Podium”, The Guardian (Sunday, 23 June 2013) wrote disapprovingly of Mrs Jonathan’s misuse of the coat of arms of Nigeria in unofficial platforms she uses for her public address: “Patience Jonathan, the First Lady and Permanent Secretary in the Bayelsa State Civil Service, a position to which she was promoted last year to national outrage, is in the news again for the wrong reasons.”… continued