By: Abba Yusuf Baba
This reflection is inspired by something that happened last week. It is the obviously sponsored—and, as it turned out, false— report on a number of Nigerian online media sites that Yobe State governor Ibrahim Gaidam ‘”had moved his wives out of Damaturu out of fear of Boko Haram”.
An anonymously written and speculative report (which in itself is a red flag) appeared on such websites as Sahara Reporters alleging that Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe State took his family out of Damaturu. It so happened that the report was, in reality, a calculated distortion of an interview the Governor’s spokesman, Abdullahi Bego, had granted the Hausa service of the VOA in which he described as ‘totally groundless’ and ‘non-issue’ comments that the Yobe State Governor had relocated his wives from Damaturu.
This is the English translation of what the governor’s spokesman actually said in response to his VOA interviewer: “[The governor’s] wives do not have an official function unlike in other states. Since he first came to power following the death of late Gov. Mamman Ali, his wives had never appeared in a public function. They have been at home as housewives. Our position – of not having the office of the first lady at the state level – is supported by the fact that there is nothing in our constitution that empowers the wife of a governor to hold office simply because she is the governor’s wife.
“Therefore since Governor Gaidam’s wives have always been at home, who could have gone into his house to check whether his wives are in town or not, and why should anybody go so far as to try to know what the governor is doing with his own family in his own home?”
In other words, the governor’s spokesman was saying that the since Governor Gaidam does not have a First Lady’s office and has elected to let his wives stay out of public glare, they are technically neither public figures nor public officials and therefore should be treated as private citizens whose privacy should be respected. If the governor’s wives are private citizens, no one—not even journalists—have the right to intrude into their privacy.
He is right. In media law, people who are neither public officials (i.e., elected or appointed government officials) nor public figures (i.e., well-known people who, though not public officials, deliberately thrust themselves into the media limelight in ways that benefit them) have an expectation of privacy. To pry into the private lives of private citizens constitutes an ethical and legal infraction, according to our media laws.
But what stood out in Abdullahi Bego’s response, for me, was the revelation that there is no First Lady in Yobe State. I was never aware that there was any state in the federation where there is no office of the First Lady—or First Ladies. This is simply remarkable. Yobe State is probably the only state in the country where state resources are not expended in the service of a First Lady’s office, an office that is neither constitutional nor ethical.
This says at least three things about the Governor. First, he must be in firm control of his matrimonial turf. Only a few men, not least our “big men,” can persuade their wives to see the futility and waste in a First Lady’s office. Fewer still can resist the pressures of their wives to be in the sweet glow of public limelight. That the governor is able to sustain his no-First-Lady policy for years says a lot about the strength and resilience of his character.
If you recall, when General Olusegun Obasanjo was elected president in 1999, he said his wife would remain his wife and that there would be no office of the First Lady. “Stella is just going to be my wife,” he said in response to a question about the role his wife would play in government. We all know how that story ended: For a few months, Stella was referred to as the “wife of the president of Nigeria.” But that soon changed and she began to be addressed as Her Excellency, the First Lady. Shortly after, her pet project, the Child Care Trust Programme, followed. Lesson: few men can reign in the overweening ambitions of their unelected spouses. Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam is one of such few men.
Second, the governor’s First-Lady (or, if you like, “no-First-Lady”) policy shows his acute awareness of the reality that part of the bane of our development as a country has been our inability to draw a clear dividing line between the public sphere and the private sphere. As pointed out earlier, the Nigerian constitution has no provision for the office of the First Lady. The existence of such an office at the federal level and at the state levels, in spite of its unconstitutionality, is the clearest indication yet that our politicians lack the capacity to separate the domestic, private sphere from the public arena. This has had profound implications for our development as a nation.
Third, and most important, the Yobe governor’s “no-First-Lady” policy evidences his admirably frugal husbandry of public resources. Billions of Naira are expended every year to maintain the offices of First Ladies all over the country, often at the expense of more pressing needs. Only recently, the federal government earmarked 5 billion naira to renovate the office of the First Lady. That’s money that could have been used to make life a little easier for thousands of less fortunate people in the country. In the states, similar amounts are spent to sustain these extra-constitutional offices. Governor Gaidam stands out as probably the only governor (or one of the few governors) that have resisted this madness. That must explain why the governor dwarfs some of his counterparts in terms of the quantum of projects he has executed for the benefit of his people. The lack of distraction from First Ladies must also explain his single-minded and widely admired commitment to the governance of his state.
In America where the idea of the office of the First Lady started, the office, unlike ours, is semi-official. However, it is guided by strict regulations. There, a First Lady gets no salary. The only thing she enjoys is that her living space, travel and personal protection is provided by the government. Unlike in Nigeria where First Ladies have “pet projects” that are financed from government coffers, an American First Lady cannot “accept gifts that are valued over a certain amount; all gifts and their values must be declared and are considered property of the U.S. government. In the case of gifts given by friends or close associates, she is given the opportunity to purchase the items by paying the government the estimated value.”
Governor Gaidam is a very cosmopolitan and humble person who is well aware of all this. If we can’t praise him for setting a good example for all governors in regards to the unconstitutional office of First Lady, we should at least respect his choice to keep the affairs of his wives private.
Since the governor’s wives have never claimed to be “First Ladies,” have no “pet projects” that are funded with taxpayers’ money, and have never accompanied the governor to any public function, it is nobody’s business where the governor’s wives live. That is entirely the governor’s—and his wives’—private matter. That was the whole point of Abdullahi Bego’s response to the VOA. And that makes a heck of a lot of sense to me.
Baba writes from Bolori Ward, Abuja. He can be reached at babannan2000@gmail.com