My wife belongs to my kitchen, the other room -Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday reacted swiftly to comments credited to his wife, Aisha, in which the First Lady was quoted as saying that she may not campaign for her husband come 2019.

Aisha granted the BBC Hausa Service an interview where she criticized her husband's leadership style, lamenting that a cabal may have hijacked Buhari's government. Aisha warned him that she may not back him at the next election unless he shakes up his government.

The First lady who alleged in the interview that most of the President's appointees did not share his vision said, "The president does not know 45 out of 50, for example, of the people he appointed and I don't know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years.

"Some people are sitting down in their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position,"

Although Aisha did not mention any name, she alluded that some members of the cabal that have ‘hijacked the husband's government are seen daily on television, "You will know them if you watch television."

Asked whether the President has made his second term presidential ambition known to her, Aisha said "He is yet to tell me but I have decided as his wife, that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before. I will never do it again."

However, president Buhari who did not take the wife's outburst lying low, retorted in faraway Germany during a joint press briefing with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel that he does not know which party his wife belongs to.

"I don't know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room," he said.

According to Buhari, Aisha and the country's other oppositions did not have superior knowledge. "I claim superior knowledge over her and the rest of the opposition, because in the end I have succeeded. It's not easy to satisfy the whole Nigerian opposition parties or to participate in the government."

Meanwhile, Senate President Bukola Saraki, yesterday described the face-off between President Buhari and his wife as a vindication of his stance on the APC-led leadership style.

Saraki who spoke through a media aide, Bamikole Omisore said the fact that Aisha could openly express displeasure about her husband's appointees vindicated his position that the current government had been hijacked.

It would be recalled that Saraki had averred that President Buhari was running a government within a government. According to him, "It has become clear that there is a government within the government of President Buhari who have seized apparatus of executive powers to pursue their nefarious agenda,"

Omisore who reacted to Aisha's out burst through his tweeter account noted "Aisha Buhari and Bukola Saraki both have the best interest of President Buhari at heart,".

He also reacted in a media interview on the subject. "It is true that we still believe that there's a government within the government."
"We do believe that the president has good intention and we're behind him. But a situation where a few people are in charge does not bode well for the image and the future of our country."

"A situation where people that work within the executive say one thing and other people that work in the same administration say and even do another thing.

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