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First Lady Aisha Buhari (right) and Mrs Osinbajo at
the dinner...on Saturday.
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First Lady Aisha Buhari has warned influence peddlers never to collect
money from people who want to see the President.
She spoke on Saturday night during
“an appreciation dinner at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa,
Abuja, in honour of All Progressives Congress (APC) women and youths who played
a major role in President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the March
28 election.
The Nation report contnues:
She said: “There is nothing people
did not say about the past administration. It is not 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
President Buhari in person.
“It is the people that are around
him that will determine the political health of our state.”
Stressing that the Buhari
administration would run an open government, Mrs. Buhari said it would be run
in clear departure from what obtained in the former President Goodluck
Jonathan’s administration when people were allegedly asked to pay money
in foreign currency before they could see the President or his wife.
She said: “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 First
Lady, you would pay US$30,000 or US$50,000 and if you were seeing the President,
you would pay all that you have gathered 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 staff. He is not an APC member, it is a lie.
Don’t be deceived.”
Noting that she did not take part in
the campaigns of her husband in the first three times he contested and failed,
Mrs Buhari said her active participation in the last electioneering made the
difference.
According to her, APC National
Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu encouraged her to play an active role in the
Buhari campaign.
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 the all sorts of gender problems people have been attaching to him, like
saying he kept me under a purdah.
“He had never kept me under a purdah
even for a moment since I got married to him.
“Even now, by the recent campaigns,
it was Bola Ahmed Tinubu who insisted that I should come out and support my
husband. Not that I never liked supporting my husband but it all depended on
the people around him; that was before.
“And now too, it is the people
around him that showed that they wanted me to participate. We did and we have
seen the difference.”
She said Buhari was the pillar of
her success, despite the generation gap between the two of them, as he even
encouraged her to go to school.
“My husband is a gender-sensitive
human being, having so many girls as his own biological children and then
having me as a wife; 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.”
When Tinubu continued pestering her
to join the campaign train, Mrs. Buhari said, she sought her husband’s
approval.
Mrs. Buhari first appeared at a
rally in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
According to her, the greatest
challenge she faced during the campaigns was security.
She recounted how the wife of
Zamfara State Governor told her how supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) stopped their convoy from returning to Gusau, the state capital, up until
4am at a point.
She said she had her own experience
when she joined the campaign train to Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.
Former Rivers State Governor Rotimi
Amaechi, who was the chairman of the event, thanked Mrs. Buhari and other women
for making his job as the Director-General of the Buhari/Osinbajo Presidential
Campaign Organization easy.
He recalled that before the
President’s wife joined the campaign, some Nigerians were asking for her and
after she joined their attention shifted to whether Buhari had a certificate or
not.
He said: “Before you (Mrs. Buhari)
joined us, they were asking for his wife. When we presented his wife, they were
asking for his certificate.
“When we presented certificate, they
said he was sick in London. Our president is strong and healthy. He visited 35
states during the election.
“Thank you for your reply when they
asked if women will want to go and give food to their husbands in prison. You
made our jobs easier.
I wish all women who took part in
the campaign God’s blessing.”
The National Women Leader of APC,
Hajia Ramatu Tijani, advised the party leadership to ensure they deliver on the
change they promised Nigerians.
She said that the dinner was
organised to appreciate those who made the change possible by touring all parts
of the country to campaign for the party.
She said: “This is the night for
those who share our dream for change. It is for those who toiled across the
country for victory. This event is meant to appreciate those who made the
change possible.”
Tinubu was represented by Senator
Babafemi Ojudu, who read his brief remark titled: “This change is about women.”
Others at the dinner included the
Vice President’s wife Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo; Senate President Bukola Saraki’s
wife, Toyin; wife of the House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara’s
wife, Gimbia and APC National Chairman’s wife, Victoria Odigie-Oyegun.
Also at the dinner were wives of APC governors,
APC female deputy governors; wives of former governors on the platform of the
party and other top officials of the party across the country.
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