Tunde Chris Odediran
Someone wrote in a US newspaper years ago that because the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un was fat while his country starved, he was responsible for the undernutrition of his people.
It is a pedestrian connection that makes sense to allege that when a public official is overweight and millions of people are hungry, it is symbolic of oppressive governance.
I was not looking to hear anyone make an almost identical statement until Aminu Muhammad, a student in the northern state of Jigawa reasoned with unmistakable innocence that the Nigerian First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, has “Kim Jong-Uned” Nigerians by eating all their food.
Aminu complained in Hausa, “Su mama anchi kudin talkawa ankoshi,” matching it with a photo of Mrs. Buhari. The tweet, which translates to, “Mama has fed fat on poor people’s food,” unleashed the fury of the state.
It was a simple but stinging post that got the environmental management and toxicology student of Federal University, Dutse, in the eyes of security operatives.
Aminu did what every young person of his age group would do – rave about the political and economic system in the country on the social media at a time when the universities had been closed for several months.
The seeming harmless and indiscreet tweet by a common student who should have been ignored provoked the First Lady, who ostensibly set up the dragnet that would catch the student on his university campus months later.
When security operatives eventually tracked the student, they whisked him to the Presidential Villa in Abuja, where he was allegedly beaten and tortured, before being arraigned in a court in Abuja.
It took a massive outcry and condemnation of the First Lady and the Buhari administration by Nigerians to see a face-saving reversal by the most powerful family in the land.
Responding to negative public reaction created, Mrs. Buhari invited Aminu back to the Presidential Villa as a guest, before he was released to become a campus hero.
It is a shame that after 23 years under continuous democratic rule, a citizen could be arrested for expressing a harmless view about the physical look of the president’s wife on the social media.
It is either our democracy is suffering an arrested development or our political leaders are moving asynchronously from the people.
The incident is a blatant use of power against the common man which Nigerians must not disregard.
To start with, the First Lady behaved not like a first lady when she took it personal. A first lady is many things to the nation.
In fact, if reports that the young man was physically abused under the supervision of Mrs. Buhari are true, we are addressing even a more tragic and disturbing behavior at the most respected residence in the land
She is the most important woman and an idea of an ideal woman. At a time Mrs. Buhari needed to inspire the nation, she didn’t produce the effect.
Which mother would want her child flown to the national capital to be disciplined for what can be regarded as juvenile exuberance?
I have been a kid and university student. I remember how you think at that age. It is an age of impatience, unmeasured confidence, carelessness and immaturity.
But the First Lady was the one who acted without maturity and in excessive bad judgment, as if she were a feudal lord when she ordered the arrest of Aminu.
In fact, if reports that the young man was physically abused under the supervision of Mrs. Buhari are true, we are addressing even a more tragic and disturbing behavior at the most respected residence in the land.
The incident raises critical issues of morality and human rights violation.
Some have argued that Aminu deserved what he got because he denigrated a highly-placed individual, while others felt the lack of respect for authority displayed by Aminu deserved to be crushed.
This is where we have to begin to ask ourselves what kind of nation we really want. If Nigerians want a free and democratic society, then this is an opportunity to explore how to get there.
Thought not elected, Mrs. Buhari is a public official as the First Lady. There is an office of the first lady in the presidency that is fully-funded by taxpayers.
Forget that the First Lady is not recognized by law, she gets billions of naira in budgetary allocation anyway, and maintains a retinue of aides, advisers and professionals who help her execute non-policy agenda as she wishes.
Anyone who spends taxpayers’ funds must submit to public scrutiny.
Mrs. Buhari cannot be collecting money that Aminu’s parents gave and think she cannot be questioned when the ostentatious behavior of public officials has become an obscene view in a nation wallowing in poverty.
The First Lady has not been acting is if she understood the mood of the country when her family hosts lavish wedding parties, travels to expensive locations and wastes public resources as if it was the 1970s Nigeria.
Mrs. Buhari has been disconnected from the struggles of most Nigerians for a long, long time. She lives in a world that is siloed from where many Nigerians live and fails to sympathize with them.
It is insensitive for Mrs. Buhari not to see that her family’s lifestyle runs contrary to the economic realities facing the majority of Nigerians.
When her daughter used a presidential aircraft last year to take photographs at a durbar in Bauchi, she dared the common man.
In some countries, even the president would have had to refund the state for using taxpayer property for a non-official trip. She forgot that her husband had used the acquisition of aircrafts in the presidential fleet to blackmail his predecessor.
The Buhari family held an opulent wedding for their son, Yusuf, in 2021.
The media reported fleets of private jets at the Kano airport belong to Nigeria’s most powerful political elites, who graced the event to the consternation of Nigerians who raged on social media after reports that expensive gifts were given to guests.
Before then, the same family had a lavish wedding for their daughter, Hanan, in 2020, The newspaper Daily Trust published a cartoon to mirror public sentiments against the wedding, which came at a time when most Nigerians were struggling from Covid-19.
In a similar tone-deaf reaction, Aisha Buhari attacked the paper’s employee, Bulama Mustapha, over the cartoon.
When the security conditions in Nigeria worsened, the First Lady was believed to have packed her bag and baggage to protect her family in Dubai, UAE, while Nigerians helplessly tried to find solutions to banditry, robbery, kidnapping and terrorism.
So, Aminu made his comment that Mrs. Buhari was getting fat on the food of all Nigerians from a place of reality, perception, pain and frustration.
It is not even funny that it is true that Mrs. Buhari has gained so much weight, whatever the cause may be – food or steroids.
But the way the student put it across, while immature and plain, got the First Lady in a bad way and showed a meanness that is difficult to comprehend.
If Mrs. Buhari can keep her vengeance to hurt a 24-year-old young Nigeria for a comment on social media for five months, what kind of mother is she?
Was Aminu not entitled to his freedom of expression towards a family that lives on the public purse?
Anyone who seeks public office must be ready to answer to the public.
It will be inconvenient and it may be sometimes even dismaying, but the affairs of those who seek public office are in the marketplace. They will be attacked, deprecated, torn apart and shredded. It is democracy.
The best response from Mrs. Buhari should have been to explain why she is putting on weight while assuring the nation that her husband cared about the welfare of poor Nigerians. She might have been able to attract the sympathy of Nigerians.
Nigerians should be concerned by the growing number of cases where the authorities try to use naked power to arrest and maltreat those who criticize them
If she had no such grace, then the First Lady should have ignored the comments of the angry young man. At worst, Mrs. Buhari could have sued Aminu for defamation pursuant of her rights under the law.
The First Lady’s instincts and actions were wrong, and probably in violation of the rights of the student.
That is probably why she quickly retracted by inviting Aminu to the Presidential Villa for a public show that preluded his freedom, instead of the prosecution that she initially sought.
The series of events proves that presidential power has limits when it runs against public opinion. And the saga is also an illustration to Nigerians that in a democracy the voice of the people must be raised against the abuse and misuse of power. To keep quiet when any Nigerian is being oppressed is to embolden those who prefer brute force over the law.
Recently, TikTok comedians were whipped and made to wash toilets in Kano State after publishing a video that a court deemed were in defamation of the Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje.
These kinds of reactions to the freedom of speech destroy the democratic fabric that Nigeria needs to build.
Nigerians should be concerned by the growing number of cases where the authorities try to use naked power to arrest and maltreat those who criticize them.
It is alright for members of the public to rage against their elected officials or their families.
Public officials are not lords and masters- they are servants of the public who should be gracious when criticised.
