Get your act together or I won’t support you, wife tells struggling president

The wife of Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has given him a ticking off for letting power fall into the hands of people he doesn’t know. Aisha Buhari says she may not back her husband at the next election unless he shakes up his government. She told the BBC that many in his government owed their positions to the influence of “a few people” working behind the scenes. “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,” she 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.

Aisha Buhari

Mr Buhari, a 73-year-old former military ruler, was elected last year after a campaign largely fought on his pledge to crush the Islamist militant group Boko Haram and crack down on corruption. He has not said whether he will seek re-election in 2019. But his wife said those who did not share the vision of his ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, had been appointed to senior positions. On the issue of whether the president was in charge, she added: “That is left for the people to decide.”

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.

Aisha Buhari

Africa