By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Let me leave Okonkwo out of this matter; because some readers might want to argue that Chinua Achebe uses that character to portray male chauvinism or male dominance in pre-colonial Igbo society in which women’s roles were in kitchens, farms and doing romantic acrobatics in their husbands’ beds. In the society of that classic novel “Things Fall Apart”; women are only seen not heard when hardworking men of valour are discussing important issues concerning their clans or communities. Even Unoka, Okonkwo’s lazy and never-do-good father, will never have brought himself to the low level of disposing of his wife’s menstrual pads.
And I will not even mention President Muhammadu Buhari who believes that his wife, Aisha, has a defined role at Aso Rock (Nigeria’s equivalent to Sierra Leone’s State House and State Lodge combined). On a visit to Germany in October 2016, when asked by the BBC to respond to his wife’s criticisms of him, he stated that: “I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room”. Throughout his presidency, he has shown, severally, that his wife has no business in meddling in his duties as Head of State simply because he is the one who was elected not her. And most importantly President Muhammadu Buhari has exhibited, countless times, the soldier he once was unlike our own President Julius Maada Bio who appears to be a sort of a henpecked husband!
What is of parallel here is that of President Julius Maada Bio with his wife Fatima and former President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria with his wife Patience. The current Sierra Leonean First Lady appears to be the reincarnation of Patience who was renowned for making public gaffes which did not only embarrass her husband but always bring his presidency into disrepute. In fact, it was even said that one of the reasons why Goodluck Jonathan did not have a second term in office was his wife’s reckless political incorrectness.
And it appears that majority of Sierra Leoneans would say the same for President Bio, of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), if he loses the June 24 elections because of some of Fatima Bio’s gaffes. She infamously stated that the All People’s Congress (APC) would not have a presidential candidate for the June 24 elections this year because there were lots and lots of court cases awaiting the party. Well, there is a Mende proverb that says: if a child tells you that his father will farm in that piece of land yonder; he must have heard his parents discussing it.
The beauty of Fatima Bio’s gaffes and flippancies is that they have always helped the APC to think two steps ahead of the SLPP. The APC knows that if those issues are not discussed in the Bios’ bedroom; she would not have been making those Freudian slips in public. And it is a known fact, since the biblical days of Samson and Delilah (as told in Judges 16), that most men are not good at keeping secrets during the heat of passion!
But Fatima Bio should have saved decent Sierra Leoneans the graphic nauseating imageries of who stains bed sheets in the Bios’ bedroom with menstrual blood and whose duty it is to clean up the mess. Maybe, just maybe, our revered First Lady was trying to evoke an imagery of how dutiful and loving her husband is. But that imagery produces the direct opposition of what might have been intended, as it seems to have presented President Bio as a sort of a henpecked husband who appears to be the “she” in the marriage while she seems to be the “he”.
The, what I will now One Drop-nize as, “I mess and he cleans up my messes” gaffe has demeaned the stature of President Bio in the eyes of right-thinking Sierra Leoneans. Here is a man who has always been presenting himself as the no-nonsense macho retired Brigadier who fought a brutal war and redeemed his country, but whose wife appears to be telling us that she regards him as a “buffalo soldier” who is nothing but a chamberlain to her! And here is a man who has been putting up the pretentious pretence of having full control of members of his cabinet, but whose wife seems to be telling the nation that he can’t control his own household.
Fatima Bio has continuously brought the Bio home and Presidency on social media with the playfulness of an over-pampered mischievous girl, giving thousands of Sierra Leoneans the conjectural impression that our Head of State seems to be a sort of a henpecked husband. At times, some of her public antics and utterances left a lot to be desired. What I think our First Lady is yet to comprehend is the fact that certain things that are private should always remain private no matter the audience (s) being addressed.
Apart from the “I mess and he cleans up my messes” gaffe; Fatima Bio appears to have found every opportunity to belittle her husband in public. In one occasion at State House in Freetown, President Bio had to publicly reprimand her for washing the SLPP’s dirty linings in public. At the last SLPP National Delegates’ Conference at the Bintumani Conference Centre in Freetown, her husband had to unprecedentedly go on stage to caution her (in her ear out of our hearings) as she was making unguarded statements as if she was under the influence of undiluted “omolay”. And in one social media video, she is seen preaching what appears to be mob justice. And in another one, she is seen making divisive statement that: “Only those who are SLPP are true Sierra Leoneans.”
Even when she doesn’t say anything, the atmosphere around her sometimes brings controversies either in the manner in which she dresses or her gaits. Fatima Bio seems to be attracted to controversies just like how insects are attracted to lighted bulbs! She appears to have a bad sense of humour as most of her intended jokes ended up being taken as offensive taunts.
And it is laughably laughable how her so-called SLPP communication specialists are frantically trying to do damage control on her latest gaffe. But I believe what Fatima Bio says simply because if the king’s wife tells you that her husband is impotent; who are you to deny her. And Achebe would have concurred that: “If crocodile comes out of the river and tells you that alligator is sick; who are you to deny?” And the First Lady was playfully playful about the telling—a whole Head of State cleaning up menstrual-stained bed sheets in camera!
And if Fatima Bio had been a member of the British royal family, her latest gaffe would have fallen under The Sun newspaper’s category of “Kiss-and-Tell” (Juicier than Prince Harry’s latest book: “Spare”.). Our First Lady has given us an insight into some of the things that usually happen, monthly, inside the presidential bedroom at State Lodge.
But I’m now conditioning my brain not to picture menstrual pads each time President Bio’s photograph pops up in the newspapers or on television.
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