It's Not Take Your Wife To Work Day

Sometimes, feminism confuses me. Do we want to be by the side of our men, or do we just want to be?

When a woman runs for political office, nobody expects her husband to campaign for her. I personally find it distasteful that the Nigerian society has come to expect a woman to drop everything she has going on for her, kids, work, and go prancing from state to state soliciting votes for her husband. I wonder, if this woman has a job, does she take time off? Will her job be waiting for her in the event that her husband does not win? I don’t know, and really that is not the point of this piece.

Some women might relish campaigning, supporting their husbands with everything they’ve got, but others like me would abhor it, so i find it presumptuous to say Ribadu and Buhari are keeping their women under wraps. Do we stop to ask ourselves, what if she has no interest in campaigning for him? After all he is the one running for office not her. During the last General Elections in the United Kingdom, I watched impressed as Nicholas Clegg’s wife spoke about how she would be willing to help, but she could not take time off her career in international trade law, and her kids to take part actively in her husband’s campaign.

In the end, it should not be about ‘the woman’, it should be about the particular woman -should a woman’s wishes and aspirations become subsumed in her husband’s? I don’t think so.

I have seen Zara Ribadu, and Hajara Adeola on TV at different times talking about their husbands’ ambitions and soliciting votes for them, that’s all well and good. If Buhari’s wife chooses not to, or Buhari chooses not to let her, it’s their private business. Let us not be hasty to assume that because these men are of a certain religion and culture and our minds have been pre-conditioned to believe that women of the Islamic faith are subjugated to their men, that is what is the case here. It very well may not be!

In her article, Lola Shoneyin said “we have been cursed with two types of first ladies: the overbearing money-grabbing ones and the colourless, invisible ones.” So far, I agree, but I also it’s think it’s time we had the third type – the independent first lady.

I have always found the position of a ‘first lady’ distasteful, especially in Nigeria. We elect the president, not his wife. She should have no business in the running of government, and neither should government resources be used to fund any of her interests. It starts from the point of campaign. A man runs for political office, and his wife runs around campaigning that he be elected into said office, when he is eventually elected, it is payback time. There is naturally the office of the first lady. She gets an entourage of her own, one that is almost as impressive as her husband’s. The office is a drain, pet project after pet project, funded by tax payers’ money I believe, projects that almost always amount to nothing but a waste of resources. But this is where it all starts isn’t it – campaign. This is why we can have a first lady who tries to run the country for months in her husband’s absence. It’s appalling to go to the official website of the office of Public Communication and find that, right after President, and Vice-President, comes the Office of the First Lady, then the Federal Executive Council. Do we elect these women? No! Should they have any part in government? No! In my opinion, a woman, or man should only support his spouse in his or her duties from behind the scenes. No one takes their husband to work with them, let us not ask that first ladies be allowed to go to work with their husbands.

i wrote this in response to Lola Shoneyin's article 'Some Patience for the Dame'