First Lady, Aisha Buhari has warned President Muhammadu Buhari’s aides that they should focus on serving Nigerians not the President because it took her husband twelve years to clinch the presidency.
The First Lady also lamented the plight of women in the country calling for a review of the widowhood rights in the south and divorce rate in the north.
Mrs Buhari said this during an appreciation dinner she hosted for women and youths of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja.
She said “There was nothing that people did not say about the past administration. It is not former President Goodluck Jonathan that is not good but the people around him.
“So, the people that are going to be around President Buhari have to be very careful because this election ended peacefully.
“We are praying and hoping that people around him should know that it took him 12 years to get to that position and they must know that they are coming to serve the masses, not General Buhari.
“It is the people that are around him that will determine the political health of our state.
“I will like to inform you that in the past regime, whether it is true or false, only God knows, some people were going round and parading themselves as personal assistants.
“If you wanted to see the President’s wife, you will pay $30,000 or $50,000 and if you are seeing the President, you will pay all that you have saved in your lifetime.
“This will not happen in our regime. Whoever asks you to give a single penny in the name of coming to see the President or his wife is not our (member of) staff. He is not an APC member, it is a lie. Don’t be deceived.”
On the plight of women in the country, she said “In the next four years, if you are divorced in the North, you can have what is called alimony.
“Whichever way our people may like to operate: whether based on religion or customarily, something has to be done on divorce in northern Nigeria and the widowhood rights in South.
“Because you have lost your husband, it will be like an end of the world for you. Something has to be done about it customarily or in the modern way.
“The women from the southern part of the country can’t continue living under suppression and oppression just because they are widows.”
She also described her husband as the pillar of her success in life, she said “Many people did not know why I was not appearing for the last three campaigns. I appeared only this time and I think it made a lot of difference. A lot of people said my husband earned four million votes as a result of my campaign.
“We were not sure but with the popularity of my husband, we thought then that he needed female support to cancel all sorts of gender bias people have been attaching to him like that he kept me under a purdah.”
“He had never kept me under a purdah even for a moment since I got married to him…
“My husband is a gender-sensitive human being, having so many girls as his own biological children and then having me as a wife, then you can see the generation gap. He allowed me to go to school. To cut the story short, he is the pillar of my success.”