Did you watch Pastor (Mrs) Folu Adeboye, popularly known as Mummy G.O weep over Nigeria at the last monthly Holy Ghost service while taking the usual prayer for the nation and other nations of the world? It has been her usual spiritual assignment during Holy Ghost programmes, but the October version came with a deep spiritual difference. Even infants know Nigeria is in a deep trouble and despite the assurances of the leaders, even when purpose is genuineness; there appears not even a thorny path out of the nation’s misery. Parents can’t even hide the hard times from children again. The questions to be asked in homes are so too obvious, starting with drastic change in family menu. Atheists may see it as spiritual escapism, but what do you do when all known solutions are defied. Is it not to run back to the All-Knowing One? With Mummy G.O’s undiluted conviction that only the Divine can get us out because whatever happens in the physical is already settled in the spiritual, she went into an agonising plea for the nation.
The Bible says the wages of sin is death. Is it not obvious that the nation is practically dead in all facets? She wailed to God as real mothers would do, to seek forgiveness for the children of Nigeria. As she knelt there, sorrowfully repeating, “Father, please have mercy on Nigeria and forgive our sins.” Do mothers of nations come more caring, concerned and worried? She groaned so much both in spirit and delivery to leave no one in doubt she was weeping for a nation, seemed abandoned by God. Man’s efforts are always fruitless without Divine assistance and backing. If God appears to be looking away from this land, we are in deep trouble because there is nothing any man can do to fix it. But the One who is plenteous in mercy seems to have harkened to our pleas. Between that agonising night and now, a pocket of positives is visible. Lagos stolen teachers and students retrieved; 21 Chibok girls negotiated out of someplace.
For some, both can be explained away as products of cause and effect; they aren’t miracles because something was paid for their freedom. Maybe. But aren’t there countless cases of such negotiation gone awry? An engineer friend was kidnapped around Akoko axis. Ransom was paid in millions. He returned a body-bag. And for Chibok unending saga. Yes, many questions still beggar convincing answers. But isn’t it cheering that some girls, separated from their parents somehow, whether there was truly a Chibok kidnap or not, are reuniting with their loved ones? Logic and politics can worry about the disappearing act involving these girls, while humanity concerns itself with the joy of having them back, flesh and blood, though they are not likely to return the same way they went to wherever they had been or kept. Today, I’m not for logic and politics.
It is the same way I’m dumping logic regarding the sizzling political advocacy embarked upon by Aisha Buhari, the tenderly-delectable wife of aging President Muhammadu Buhari. For one, I’m not shocked by her London exposé, but grateful she went on that voyage. By that singular act, she has transformed from a rumbustious First Lady who equated a sitting governor to a dog, to a genuine mother of the nation in the mould of Mummy G.O.
Without doubts, their styles are different. But does it really manner how you do it to save this dying nation? While Mummy G.O sent her tears to God for healing in the land, Aisha is sending hers to Nigerians, at home and diaspora, and the world beyond our shores, ready to give her a listening ear.
It is doubtful if Buhari is shocked by Aisha’s grudge excursion. He should have known a young woman he married about 27 years ago, except he wants to be untruthful. Apart from her beauty, Aisha really sank in my consciousness moments after her husband’s election when she described herself as indomitable. I had squirmed then, praying she won’t be an extreme version of Mama Peace. When she went after Governor Ayo Fayose reportedly against her husband’s wish, I knew it won’t be long before she will completely dump the mascara for an ugly fight with anyone.
But how pleasant her “ugliness.” A true radical for purpose. By turning their bedroom in Aso Rock over to the public “to see,” Aisha is saving the nation and her people, because major governance decision is always from that part of any government house. Now, we know the kitchen cabinet is in disarray. Nothing emanating from it can be tasteful. Opinions are surely going to be divergent over her decision to wash the First Family’s dirty linen on London street, but it takes courage to so do, in view of the security volatility surrounding the office of her husband. She deserves more kudos for discountenancing the political implications of this uncommon sting operation. Buhari is trying to water down the exposé by saying Aisha belongs to his kitchen and bedroom, but the president himself knows those are the two most important places to the “core” of a leader, regardless of whether made of steel, iron or fish jelly. Leaders are also forged in the crucible of these two wings of any government house. Having been around power for so long since his military days, Buhari would be feigning cheap ignorance by condescending Aisha’s frustration into serve-my-food and warm-my-bed comedy.
It was a rare peep into how we are being governed; disparately so, considering the discordant tune coming from the inner recesses. Aisha may be seen as cantankerous. Buhari, being who he is, is likely to restrain her seriously after this courageous outing. He may even divorce her or withdraw all the benefits and paraphernalia of office, but whatever happens, Aisha has booked her legend as a heroine of Nigerian people. Her frustration may be personal but her tears are washing the nation. Buhari further increased her stock with the kitchen allusion. There should have been a better way of responding instead of sounding outrageously chauvinistic. It is dangerous if this speaks his mind about women. It takes away a lot from him.
and then