AISHA BUHARI, AMINULLAH AND THE LEGACY OF MORAL DECADENCE

 The young should be punished for their misdeeds, writes Tahir Ibrahim Tahir

Just as there are millions of lovers of PMB, and perhaps tonnes of fans and supporters of Aisha Buhari, and her Future Assured programs; there are almost equal number of haters, wailers and even down to the worst of them – enemies of the first family. The power, the affluence, and the numerous perks that come with the position they find themselves in, as guided by The Lord’s providence. The situation The First Lady finds herself in, regarding an online troll, Aminu from Bauchi State, is the perfect stage for her enemies to devour her, and insult the living daylight out of her. If they had their way, she should be imprisoned or humiliated publicly, in a town square, like the Old Market Square at Nottingham, where the Luddites protests were held. Even in the midst of PMB hailers and die hards, there are wailers to the unusual media gaffes of The First Lady that have perhaps been a source of concern to the administration, from back in the day when PMB coined The Other Room for Mamana (Aisha-the First Lady). She is often excoriated for that and has perhaps never been forgiven for those media outings including the most recent one where she was nostalgic about PMB’s recovery from the trauma of the civil war, as a war time veteran.

   Notwithstanding Aisha’s sins of being Nigeria’s First Lady, wife of PMB, media gaffes, there is a very disheartening development in our society where children, young ones, teenagers, and youths in their 20s and 30s are encouraged to live an uncultured, unorthodox and egalitarian lifestyle where they are right all the time and cannot be coached, guided, or reprimanded; let alone punished for any misdeeds. Teachers or other educational instructors are now the subject of ridicule, scorn and abuse, should they dare to punish kids or students, under their care and tutelage. Morality has been taken out of our school’s curricula, just the way history was expunged. The videos and reels that come out of our primary and secondary schools are no longer causes of concern, but sources of entertainment and humor. Recently, a student of a College of Education stabbed his best friend to death over a girlfriend. The army of little devils being reared is alarming and worrisome.

   Social media has become no man’s land and the idea of freedom of speech being imbibed, is to have freedom to infringe on other people’s freedom, beliefs and cultures. There should be no limit to what one can post or tweet. Immorality, profanities, dehumanizing posts, nudity and sex are all to be freely posted and made available to all groups and ages in our society. To abuse anybody, however you want, for whatever reason, and to bully anyone you’d love to do, and offload your vileness or venom on them is just guaranteed by the freedom of speech. It is the Stone Age decorum in the global village newage technology. Sex anywhere, language anyhow and everywhere and the strongest reigns supreme. Have you been a victim of online bullying? Has your child been a victim of online bullying? Have you been a victim of revenge porn, nudes, and other social media exploitative trends that have the tendencies of destroying one’s childhood or livelihood forever?

   It is unfortunately a political season, one that promises to be the hardest fought, and fought to the finish line. Aisha and Aminu’s imbroglio is veritable material for political manipulations and sensationalism, that is definitely bound to up the ante for the opposition camps. The Obidients and especially the Atikites are having a field day with it and it’s business as usual. Removing one’s self from a partisan perspective and implanting one’s view from a moral angle would be Herculean, rare and of course would only be beneficial to finely patriotic citizenry, who are more concerned for the long run, than the short run and selfish benefits of the scenario.

It has been reported a few times that The First Lady has sought medical attention abroad. Most would not be fair in judgement to even think that she is perhaps suffering from the side effects of her medical disadvantages. Hatefully some are concentrating on her size to demean her, and in white man’s land, body shame her. Aminu outrightly called her a thief. He is young enough to have been mothered by her. His accusation is unfounded. In the North, predominantly Muslim, caution and religious values have been thrown to the boot and the front seat is firmly occupied by modernism, belt strapped, on a cruise to the jungle justice arena where the guilty is to be emancipated as victim. The young is correct and old is wrong. The tradition of punishing the young for misdeeds publicly and rebuking the older privately is no longer fashionable. The reverse is the case. What we always forget is that while we are celebrating other people’s calamities, misdeeds and trials, we are not insulated or quarantined from similar or worse misgivings. I wonder how many of us would watch a child as young as our children or grandchildren insult us, and walk away peacefully and cheerfully. Unconfirmed reports speak of infringing on Aminu’s rights and privileges. But then the confirmed infringements of Aisha’s rights among other things are to be done away it. Puff like you blow away a fly from your bottle top!

   Tahir is Talban Bauchi