I have said it many times that desperation can lead the unintelligible with low self-esteem to engage in unwholesome acts, and hatred could be one of such unwholesome acts driven by desperation, as we are observing today in the 2015 presidential election.
As history has shown of desperation leading to hatred and engaging in ignoble actions by either leaders or their spouses, we have heard of how the desperation of the inordinate ambition of becoming a queen drove Lady Macbeth into the frenzy of pushing her husband, Macbeth, to killing their guest, King Duncan; how the desperation to have the defiant Joseph in the scripture drove Potiphar’s wife to frame up Joseph; how the desperation for wealth drove Jezebel to killing Naboth in order to have his vineyard; how desperation drove King Ahab to defy Micah’s prophesy not to wage war against Syria to reclaim Ramoth and he perished in trying to reclaim Ramoth situated then in Gilead; and how David, out of obsession and desperation to have Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, forcibly took Bathsheba and sent out Uriah to die in the battle field.
Of course, the result of the desperate actions of the characters mentioned above was not palatable to them, but turned out for good of the general society, as it brought about change and turn-around from misfortune to fortune. So, if not for hatred driven by desperation to retain power, the show of shame of organising spineless miscreants in London to disrupt General Muhammadu Buhari’s spotless outing at Chatham House would not have arisen in the first place, let alone the wife of Mr. President condescending so low to a shameful gutter level of abusing an elder (one that had in the past held same post her husband is holding today) and her husband not giving a hoot about it. I have not heard or read that Mr. President showed any indignation against his wife’s infra dig utterances against Buhari in calling him ‘a dead brain’, giving the Commander-in-Chief out as giving his wife the audacity to abuse Buhari or use vulgar language in going about her husband’s electioneering.
The ‘sin’ Buhari committed to earn the opprobrium is not running for the presidency against his husband, but this time around feared as the possible and veritable catalyst for the change that people are clamouring about. It seems the writing on the wall that the change people are earnestly yearning for is obvious to come by Buhari; after all, he contested three times in the past and the last of which being against President Jonathan in 2011 and he did not have the kind of wide and still rising popularity and preference then as is the case with him today.
Like Simone Gbagbo, the wife of former President Laurent Gbagbo, Mrs. Patience Jonathan seems to have read the writing on the wall and has now become eerily desperate. It seems like a case of a drowning person clutching on every floating object to swim to safety. Certainly, as there is God o, like in the case of Philippines, when God said ‘yes’ that the time had come to end the Ferdinand Marcos nasty era of corruption, arrogance, impudence and impunity, all the irritable and unwholesome desperate actions of Imelda Marcos, the ebullient wife of Ferdinand, could not stop the change from happening then.
Therefore, if God has decided that there must be change of Nigeria’s leadership this 2015, with Buhari to succeed Jonathan in office, no amount of tantrums, abuses, blackmail, lies, chattering, conspiracy, frustration, impediments, organising of hirelings and miscreants as cash and carry ‘protesters’, hack writing, intimidation and what have you will stop the change of leadership or would stop Buhari from emerging as Nigeria’s president, take it or leave it.
“When Jesus Christ says Yes, nobody can say No” has become a cliche. And a quotation goes, “If God does not make you, no one can make you; and even if someone tries to make you, if God does not want it, it will not succeed.” Rather, unknown to them, their actions are attracting more sympathy for Buhari and increasing his popularity. For President Jonathan to have kept quiet about the abuse of Buhari by his wife and without any apologies from the Presidential Villa so far, it really speaks volumes, and perhaps depicts a snippet of how the home could be.
It was this kind of public behaviour by Mrs. Jonathan against Governor Rotimi Amaechi, which went without rebuke, that eventually led to the schism between Jonathan and Amaechi, which eventually led to the latter leaving his former political party.
Mrs. Jonathan’s outburst against Buhari, as well as her directive that anyone seen calling for change should be stoned, has attracted wide spread public odium, but none has come from the Presidency. I commend the exemplary maturity with which Mrs. Buhari has taken the pill of a fellow woman abusing her husband and she did not utter a word, simply and eloquently depicting that the two women are not of the same class.
While Mrs. Jonathan goes about politicking and campaigning for her husband, which is normal, she should do it in a decorous and honourable manner, especially because she is the wife of a country’s president and mirror/window of the country. She should be guided by history. The whole world still remembers the life and times of such big women like Ahab’s wife, Simone Gbagbo, Imelda Marcos and Lady Macbeth.
Bearing the appellation of Mama Peace, we would want our dear president’s wife not to be cruel to people but to show comportment, humility, love and kindness at all times, no matter the situation, like Ruth in the Scripture. As it is very clear that if the coming election is not rigged or manipulated that Buhari is going to win the presidential election, it is my candid opinion that if the former President of Senegal, Abdulaye Wade, and the former female President of Malawi, Mrs. Joyce Banda, as incumbent presidents at the time, lost election and hell was not let loose, Nigeria’s own case should not be different, if President Jonathan loses the coming presidential election. It should not be a matter of do-or-die.
• Anueyiagu is an independent journalist/public affairs commentator.