Recently, the First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari posted on her verified handle a photograph where she was celebrating the graduation of Zahra, her son’s wife from a British university. New Telegraph acknowledges the personal right of Mrs. Buhari to take to the celebratory path whenever the need arises. But Mrs. Buhari is the wife of Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari. Her actions would usually project the Federal Government (FG) in a positive or wrong light.

The perceived public image of President Buhari has taken a hit with his public display and those of his family members make a mockery of such branding and give an entirely opposite but more realistic understanding of the major character trait of the nation’s first family, which, to say the least, could be the penchant for ostentation. Mrs. Buhari was happy displaying the photograph(s) of the academic success of her daughter-in-law at a time when thousands of parents have been deprived of the opportunity of doing same because of the failure of her spouse, President Buhari, to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), thereby resulting in a loss of an entire academic session following an indefinite strike since February 14 this year.

The First Lady, like others either in the corridors or rooms of power or even in the upper class of the society could be said not to be keen in ensuring an improved access to education to the populace as that would help equip them with the arsenal to cope with the vicissitudes of human existence while subjecting the political office-holders at all levels to profound scrutiny.

Mrs. Buhari reportedly did not interface with the National Assembly to help bring pressure to bear on the Parliament with regard to securing generous appropriation(s) that would help put an end to the on-going ASUU strike. We recall that the First lady spearheaded a lobby to the National Assembly on two occasions. The first time was a lobby aimed at securing the passage into law of a bill for the setting-up of the North East Development Commission (NEDC). The North-East geo-political zone is Mrs Buhari’s place of origin. The second time was when a lobby was initiated to help persuade the National Assembly to pass into law a bill for the allocation of more legislative seats to females, as is the case with Rwanda and Morocco. The National Assembly responded with a “yes” answer to the requests spearheaded by the First Lady.

The North-East Development Commission (NEDC) is now a reality with large funds generated from the oil producing states deployed into making all forms of logistic interventions in a geo-political zone whose act of terrorism long after the bloody Civil War defies common sense.

The same Parliament that voted “yes” to the NEDC threw out the bill seeking the establishment of the South-East Development Commission (SEDC) to help address the Civil War imposed devastation and the pains of some lopsided public policy formulations. Political office-holders are either elected or appointed into decision making positions to positively impact on the lives of the populace.

We regret that this has not reasonably been the case with the number one citizen. Despite declaring a zero tolerance to a conduit to the public till called medical tourism, in his inaugural address at the Eagle Square, Abuja, in 2015, Mr. President did a detour to embrace it thereby inflicting a huge cost on the nation courtesy of his recurring overseas medical trips usually at public expense. It is wrong for the members of the political class to allocate endless privileges such as medical and education tourism to themselves to the displeasure and neglect of the public. Such practice goes a long way to erecting a wall between the governing class and the led, as well as denying the former the mandatory by-in and support of the latter.

What kind of opinion will members of ASUU hold about the First Lady’s action? Could she claim to be unaware of the many meetings between ASUU and the FG without the latter being largely unresponsive as expected? What will members of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) say of the wife of Mr. President? Could she claim not to be aware of the protests by NANS, at strategic national assets including the highways in a bid to compel the visibly unwilling Executive Arm of Government to comply with the demands of ASUU? New Telegraph wishes to state that the tag of Mr. President or that of Governor or the First Lady is a mere position of privilege, which nobody should capitalize on to exhibit ostentatious conduct, as illustrated by Mrs. Buhari and other members of the privileged class.

What is imperative now is for the Executive Branch of Government to commit itself to the re-opening of the nation’s public universities. This would be meaningfully actualized by meeting ASUU’s demands, which is all about addressing the fundamental issues relating to the publicly owned temples of learning. There is no substitute to the optimum functionality of the university system of any country, for without universities, a nation cannot and will never be in a race to compete. The secret of success of reasonably developed nations is the functionality and vibrancy of their educational sectors. Their universities are kept in top shape in order to dictate the pace of development in the different sectors of their economies. This is a challenge to all those who have settled for education tourism at public expense including the First Lady, Mrs. Buhari.

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