A report written by Punch Editorial Board
Each time the wife of the President,
Patience Jonathan, hits the road with her long motorcade, including
bulletproof and bombproof limousines, or is having a whale of a time at
an event, drivers and commuters who find themselves on her routes always
have to live with the bitter experience of the encounter. As police
empty the roads of traffic, forcing drivers to wait as her glamorous
convoy drifts by, motorists are trapped in traffic for hours on end,
while social and economic life of the affected community is brought to a
halt abruptly.
The recent visit of Mrs. Jonathan to
Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, in which her security details
forcibly grounded the movement of residents, is the latest of such
excesses that Nigerians have been forced to endure for the past three
years. This impunity must stop.
Acording to newspaper reports, Mrs.
Jonathan’s security arrangement paralysed activities in the Port
Harcourt Government Reservation Area for the four days of her visit.
Armoured personnel carriers were deployed at two points, while
gun-wielding operatives manned the points leading to her private
residence. Many people missed their appointments because they were
prevented from moving in and out of their houses.
When she came to Lagos last year, on a
“thank-you visit” to some women groups for electing her husband
president, she enacted a similar repulsive scenario. During the visit,
Lagos residents were subjected to an unprecedented road blockade, which
gave rise to an unnerving five-hour traffic that grounded all human and
economic activities. The First Lady was attending that event at Ocean
View Restaurant on Adetokunbo Ademola Street, Victoria Island.
Mrs. Jonathan’s misdemeanour, which
still resonates more than a year after it happened, forced Governor
Babatunde Fashola to lament, “Lagosians were needlessly inconvenienced….
It dawned on me the need for public officers generally to be more
sensitive to the people we serve. It is particularly worrisome that this
(she) is not an elected person. I think we all must check how security
agencies use the movement of high officers, especially VIPs, to disrupt
citizens and taxpayers, whose money is used to fuel all the vehicles and
all the apparatus that we use to block the roads against them. It
should not get to the level that we close the roads in the state because
VIPs want to pass.” It cannot be said better.
But not long after the ridiculous
show of power in Lagos, Mrs. Jonathan headed for Warri, Delta State,
where she also caused hardship to residents through her security
arrangements. Needless to say, these foul-ups compound gridlocks on our
roads. On a few occasions, the First Lady has also broken protocol.
During President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to the United States in
September 2012, she breached protocol by disembarking from the aircraft
before the President, and shaking hands with officials waiting on the
tarmac while her husband was still coming down from the plane. The First
Lady is setting a bad example for wives of governors.
The position of the First Lady in the
United States, from where the convention spread to other countries, is
not an elected one, carries no official duties, and attracts no salary.
But it glows with much glamour and the occupier is expected to handle
the position with sublime grace. In the United Kingdom, the role of the
Prime Ministerial Consort is not official and as such whoever occupies
the office is not given a salary or official duties. Many of them prefer
to remain very much in the background. Indeed, the late Denis Thatcher
once summed up the role of the ideal prime ministerial spouse as
“always present, never there.” This is the ideal.
But operating under the
loosely-defined, unconstitutional office of the “First Lady,” Mrs.
Jonathan has been bringing the highest office in the land into disrepute
since her husband assumed full duties as President in May 2010, by her
public conduct. Her behaviour – when there is no reason for it – is
leaving many citizens who have had their rights trampled on bitter but
helpless.
This is not the practice in civilised
societies. The basic requirement of civilised democracy is that
everyone plays by the rules and that the rules command public
confidence. In October 2011, it was reported that a stunned 27-year-old
Indian woman was so agitated that she enquired from David Cameron, who
chose to travel in a tube train during rush hour, “Excuse me, are you
the Prime Minister?” The Prime Minister was reportedly travelling on the
London Underground for an appointment. The United States’ security
services offer maximum protection to Michelle Obama while, at the same
time, causing minimal inconvenience to other motorists and citizens. It
is as outrageous as it is gravely uncivilised for official cortèges to
take pleasure in inflicting pains on the people that such officials
claim to be serving.
The itinerary of the First Lady can
be smoothly planned without compromising her safety and the convenience
of the citizens. Mrs. Jonathan must recognise that power is ephemeral
and should learn from the past occupants of the office who history does
not favourably remember because they did incalculable damage to the
image of the First Family. Fashola, who, as a governor, does not use
sirens in his limited convoy, and does not harass other road users,
offers a useful lesson in public morality and decorum. Even with the
aura surrounding the office of President of the United States, whenever
Barack Obama is visiting any part of America, information is fully
circulated to the locality well ahead of time, and locals are given
alternative routes that cause minimum inconveniences to use.
It is President Jonathan’s duty to
caution his wife to stop this regime of offensive illegality that has
tainted the Presidency and presented Nigeria in a bad light.
