Politicizing the Health of Dame Patience Jonathan

“My fellow widows…”

 “My Husband and Sambo is a good people…” 

“The President was once a Child and the Senators were once a Children…” 

“Where we you pless ya hand...’’

 “Pless ya hand under the Humblerra…”

 “Ojukwu is dead but his manhood lives on...” 

No doubt these blunders ring a bell especially if you’re one taken with social media and the attendant hyper-inflated news stories that make the rounds daily in Nigeria. The object of these seemingly humorous grammatical errors has never been one to shy away from the media and those who will be true to themselves will agree that she is down to earth and not one to put on airs. This has not stopped her critics and most recently her detractors from constantly keeping her in eagle eye-view in order to publish her innumerable “grammatical errors”. As a matter of fact, many have come up with fictitious quotations attributed to her, forgetting that English is not our mother tongue and even those who have English as their first language sometimes have difficulty speaking it correctly. No Briton can speak my dialect perfectly I can assure you.       

     Dame Patience Goodluck Jonathan will undoubtedly emerge an uncontested winner if ever an award was organized to honour the most vilified and ridiculed First Lady in Nigeria’s history. I have no doubt in my heart that former First Lady, Turai Y’ardua’s literacy level or dare I say “social GP” could not have been higher than that of Dame Patience Jonathan. Even so, the rumour lords would not let our ears take a break from tales of how the late President Umar Y’ardua had had a tutor hired for the first lady to coach her not just in matters of grammar constructions but social etiquettes as well. Turai was no doubt interested in keeping appearances and we all now know how much of woman behind the show she really was in spite of the “gentle dove” look she always managed to put on for Nigerians (We’ll wait to hear what “stunts” our dear Dame pulled after her husband’s tenure). 

Dame Patience Jonathan is in the news again and this time it is not about her “grammatical missiles”. It’s about a much more delicate issue; her health. In the past few weeks, speculations, allegations, accusations and counter accusations have been flying around concerning the First Lady’s health. While Sahara Reporters reported that she had been flown abroad for an emergency surgery after food poisoning, they came up days later to say that she was in a German hospital recuperating from an appendectomy. Still some time later, they alleged that she had gone to have fibroids removed. All sorts of media have been used by both cocktail journalists and political opponents to explore the current state of health of the first lady (whatever that is) to their advantage. We have since woken each day to fresh angles to the stale story. If it is not about the President having given express instructions against any statement from any Villa staff over the first lady’s health, it is about the president not having paid a visit to his wife since her admission to the hospital. Some folks have acquired overnight fame over the issue of Dame’s health castigating the president through all media possible for not “officially of formally” informing Nigerians of his wife’s state of health. In all of this, one thing is evident; most of the reports or speculations are not borne out of genuine concern for the first lady’s health. As a matter of fact, some folks have come with a new dimension to the whole story. It is that since the days of Gen. Sanni Abacha, no first family has left the villa without losing a member of household…Hmmmm food for thought indeed. If really that be the case, should we as a nation glory in that knowledge? What really is wisdom if it is not the application of knowledge to set oneself free from any yoke? 

 Yesterday saw yet another dimension to the story with speculations that Dame Patience Jonathan was showing the early signs of Parkinson Disease, haba, my people. I shiver to think of the implications. Like someone rightly said, it is an open secret that some people pathologically hate Mr. President and his wife and instead of wishing her well by praying for her quick recovery from whatever health challenges have befallen her, they have chosen to politicize the situation. The hypocritical people who went on hunger strike in the name of fasting during Y’ardua’s illness in the hope of his coming back to fulfill the “Hausa-Fulani” dream have all lost their tongues. They have kept mute over Dame’s health. While many may not agree with President Jonathan’s style of leadership or politics, let’s not forget that talk is cheap. Some geniuses (albeit evil) have RULED this nation and done worse but are still alive. You might not like her as a person but the rain falls on every one of us good or evil. These same Sahara reporters were the first to claim that from a reliable source they could report that the first lady was been treated from food poisoning, yet a while later their “reliable source” exclusively told them it was appendectomy gone wrong. Not to forget that their “exclusively reliable source “also informed them and they hurriedly broadcast that the first lady was misdiagnosed by her host of Nigerian doctors at the villa. Sahara reporters! Oh, what odd professionals you are!!! It is clear that we as a people have gradually but steadily lost our common humanity. We have forgotten about compassion and love for our neighbours and here we are - a people without conscience. This woman in question has been the backbone of her husband’s administration just like every reasonable woman should be. I really doubt if Jonathan could have won the elections without her input all other things being equal.African men are no fools, even when they refuse to publicly admit it, they know where their power lie; in their women. If you’re still in doubt that Dame Patience Jonathan is a powerful woman, ask yourself why there’s so much hullabaloo about her illness and why the whole nation is worked up over her continued absence. You think it’s simply because of Jonathan’s PR gone awry? Check again.

      Whatever any one might think, we should remember; 

• That Dame Patience Jonathan and her husband are human and this woman is ill enough to have stayed away from her country, her family (husband and children) for this long. Have you ever waited at the entrance door of an operating Theatre for news of a loved one? Before anything else, pray that God spares you the trauma of having a loved one in a hospital for a protracted period of time and especially in a foreign land where you cannot see him or her. 
• The position of the president does not in any way exempt him from basic human considerations. Accord him that much respect.

 Oh, you’re angry that she went abroad for medical treatment? Yes, I feel your pain. But be truthful, the decadence in the Nigerian health system did not start with Goodluck Jonathan and you know it. If he is yet to succeed in reviving it please temper justice with mercy and remember even the president can only do so much at a time when he is surrounded by nincompoops for advisers and “Facrooks” as Senators. But do not pretend that if you were in a position to send your spouse abroad or pay for the best medical services a time like this you would do otherwise and let him or her die. You know yourself and I know myself. Now let’s pray for Dame Patience Goodluck Jonathan. Say a genuine prayer for her from the depth of your heart. Pray for her like you would pray for your mother, sister, aunt, daughter or wife if she were the one in the hospital. Pray that the evil which has been lodged in Aso Rock to make the First Family objects of pity under successive administrations will not swallow her family. Pray that she will receive the touch of Jesus the Great Physician. Above all pray that God will restore her health and let her rejoin her family. And while you are at it remember, you are not doing this as a favour to Goodluck Jonathan and his family, you are just being humane and demonstrating the love which God COMMANDED us to show one another.