NIGERIAN CRIES WHERE
IS THE FIRST LADY, PATIENCE JONATHAN?
Earlier this month, the wife of the president, Her
Excellency Dame Patience Jonathan travelled on vacation to Dubai after the
recent African First Ladies Summit in Abuja, it came to our knowledge that she
became ill all of a sudden and was flown abroad with an air ambulance to
Germany to receive treatment due to “food poisoning” and up till now there have
not been an update concerning her condition and also the presidency has kept
mum about the issue, relating to that, people have been agitating to know more about the issue bringing up so
many controversies. So many Nigerians has diverse opinion about the issue and
so this is what they have to say:
Speaking with the head of department(HOD) of the Nigerian
Institute of Journalism, Mr Jide Johnson, he said “to that effect that the
first lady is ill, what we learnt is that she’s gone on vacation and if
somebody has worked tirelessly, he has the right to go on vacation. We were
told and let’s take it with a pinch of salt that she went on vacation but one
thing that has taken me apart in this country is the way we try to manipulate
the truth, our ability to play on our intelligence, thinking that we are
fooling others not knowing that we are fooling ourselves, anybody can be sick
at any point in time! If the first lady is ill, Nigerians should know, we have
the right to know so that we can pray for her. Because there is no way the
president can concentrate in the running of the affairs of the country if the
wife is ill, definitely he will not concentrate. Anyway I hope she is not ill,
but if she is, I pray that she will be healed and return back home healthy, we
wish her speedy recovery”.
A presenter, Emmanuel
Ereyi in his own view said, “Well,
I think the situation of the president’s wife
is something that a lot of Nigerians do not understand they don’t know
why there have to be any form of secrecy about the state of her health, this
reminds us of the days of the Late president Musa Yar’adua much they were,
situations about his state of health, where he was as at the time, we are beginning to see something similar about the president’s wife and I
think it is the right of Nigerians to
know the true state of her health and what the situation is. We are still
waiting to know what the situation is. I know from what we heard in the news
that she was flown abroad and she was been treated for food poisoning that was
debut by the federal government leaving it in the yardstick of rumour, but what
the true situation is we do not know, we were also told that she went out for a
short rest, this is certainly is not longer short and how long will the rest
going to be? That is something Nigerians need an answer to. So, we’ll just keep
watching to see what comes out of it”.
Also, a reporter, Adegboyega Arogbodo said this, “the office
of the first lady has been made pronounced right from the days of Babangida,,
so that office have now become recognized, though it is not constitutional but
we found out that people have now seen that office as a government house
generally, so now for the first lady to be out of the country just like that,
normally, the country has had it like what’s going on? So when nobody is now
talking, even if the presidency is not talking about it, people are like
wandering what is happening and for the fact that it is similar to what
happened in the time of Late president Musa Yar’adua, the way he was flown in
and out , so people where agitated. Naturally there is this human feelings and
that is what people are putting into consideration not that it is really
constitutional and it is not recognized by the
constitution but because of the
importance that we put into that office from time being, so people are like the
wife of our president, where is she? So that’s why it is humanly a bit
necessary to ask.
