News, Entertainment, Tv, Music, Video, Politics, Sports, News

Abuja (AFP) – “Few would have believed that the taciturn, austere General Buhari had a soft, smiling and sweet woman at home,” the Vanguard daily said after the former military ruler was elected Nigeria’s next president.

Aisha Buhari remained in the shadows for most of the election campaign but could now impose a very different style from the current First Lady at the presidential villa Aso Rock in Abuja.

Little is known for now about the First Lady elect other than a few details in the Nigerian media: she is 44, married her 72-year-old husband in 1989 after he divorced his first wife the previous year, and they have five children together.

“I met Aisha Buhari three times, and she seems to be a very humble person, very friendly and a good listener,” said lawyer Ebere Ifendu, head of the Women in Politics Forum group in Abuja.

The current First Lady, Patience Jonathan, wife of the outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan, has a very different public profile.

She is well-known to journalists and mimicked by comedians for her boisterous public appearances as well as political and financial scandals.

“Patience has been like a bull in a china shop. No control whatsoever,” said Yemisi Ransome-Kuti, head of the Nigeria Network of NGOs.

“We are very hopeful that we will have a very different First Lady, who will bring calm and harmony at the presidency.”

– Calm and relief –

In the large house in a residential area of Abuja where her husband Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was watching election results come in, Aisha Buhari’s calm demeanour contrasted with the tumultuous scenes outside.

The official vote count was under way and the electoral commission was drip-feeding results for the presidential election state by state until Buhari took an unassailable lead.

The APC high command announced victory for their candidate and the news spread around the country, sparking scenes of jubilation, notably in the north’s biggest city, Kano.

Dressed in a cream-coloured tunic and an orange and pink embroidered headscarf, Aisha Buhari seemed calm and also relieved, despite the magnitude of what had just happened and what was to come.

“The long journey has come to an end,” she told AFP, referring to the election campaign.

But she admitted to “mixed feelings” about the campaign, a low-key reference to the low blows and personal attacks aimed at her husband from the ruling party.

Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accused Buhari, a northern Muslim, of supporting radical Islam, of failing to secure his secondary school certificate and even having terminal cancer.

Aisha Buhari preferred instead to talk about the positive aspects of the rollercoaster ride that had led Nigeria to its first democratic transfer of power between parties at the ballot box.

Nigeria had nothing to fear from her husband, she said.

“I know him personally. Not as a leader of Nigeria. I know him as my husband and I think Nigeria should feel comfortable with him. He will get there,” she added.

– ‘Mama Peace’ –

Patience Jonathan for her part tended to add fuel to the flames during the campaign, going as far as urging PDP supporters to “stone” anyone shouting “change” — the APC campaign slogan.

The comments sparked outrage in the APC and led to a furious debate in the Nigerian media.

Patience Jonathan — who styled herself “Mama peace” — is used to media scandals.

Even before the election of her husband as head of state in 2011, she was suspected by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in 2006 of having laundered a vast sum of money.

In 2012, she became “permanent secretary” of the oil-producing southern state of Bayelsa, where Goodluck Jonathan is from and was a former governor.

The opposition heavily criticised the appointment, decrying “nepotism” and “favouritism”.

She also attracted the ire of civil society when in the aftermath of the mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in April last year, one of the leaders of the “Bring Back Our Girls” movement was arrested after meeting the First Lady at the presidential villa.

“Maybe she misunderstood her role as the First Lady,” suggested Ifendu.

“There’s no official role for the First Lady in Nigeria. It’s not in the constitution,” added Ransome-Kuti.

Instead, it often depends on what weight the president gives it.

“What we are hoping for is more decorum from the office of the First Lady,” she said

The editor of the BBC, Mansur Liman, explains how he broke the story of the historic phone call from Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan to admit election defeat – and how it almost didn’t happen.

I was at the election results centre in the capital, Abuja, and at around 17:00 (16:00GMT) the votes from all but three states had been declared.

Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate for the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), had the lead over incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.

During a break in the results, it became obvious to me that the lead was unassailable and I began wondering about what was going on in the APC camp. Were they celebrating or still anxiously waiting?

Going by previous Nigerian elections, when rigging and results fiddling has allegedly taken place, nothing could be taken for granted.

It turns out that so many calls were coming through that there was no time to answer them all – and Gen Buhari did not even know where his phone was.

I thought that there would still be some more bumps on the road, given the passion in the campaign and the fact that a governing People’s Democratic Party official had already tried to halt the count.

I have a lot of contacts within Gen Buhari’s circle and I know him personally so I decided to try and call someone who I knew would be with him to find out the mood.

After he missed my call, and I missed his response, I eventually got through.
‘Unimaginable’

I asked him what was going on, given that there was no way President Jonathan could win and I was surprised by the response.

He told me that Gen Buhari had just received a phone call from his rival, in which the president conceded and congratulated him.

I did not doubt that this was true as I trusted my source, but given what has happened before in Nigeria, this kind of concession was up to that point unimaginable.

I was pretty sure that I was the first journalist to get the story so as soon as I got off the phone I alerted the BBC’s election desk and tweeted the details.

There were, of course, people who were very concerned about what could happen if the result was contested.

And I have since discovered that members of the National Peace Committee, which is headed by former President Abdulsalami Abubakar, visited President Jonathan as the results were being announced.

I understand they were the ones who persuaded the president to do something to avoid any trouble, and shortly after the visit he made the call.
‘Pick up the phone’

But even making the call was not straight forward. I heard later that the president could not actually get through to Gen Buhari.

He rang all the numbers he had for people in his camp, but no-one answered.

It turns out that so many calls were coming through that there was no time to answer them all – and Gen Buhari did not even know where his phone was.

President Jonathan resorted to sending a messenger round to his rival’s house to tell him that the president wanted to speak to him. And that he should pick up the phone the next time he tried to call.

By making that call the president saved Nigeria a great deal of pain. If the PDP had insisted that they had won the election, and the APC had said the same, the country would have been in chaos.

Lives would have been lost and property would have been destroyed. That call showed that in Nigeria, people can put the country first.

I have heard from PDP supporters that the president took the decision to make the call without consulting anyone. They told me that if he had talked to some of his advisers, they would have objected.

Source: BBC