Monday,
July 28, 2014
Folks, the wives of male
Presidents in Africa are parading themselves about as First Ladies and profiting
from it. Of all, Mrs. Graca Machel is the only one to have emerged as the First
Lady for two different countries at different times, beginning as the wife of Samora
Machel of Mozambique and shifting to South Africa’s Madiba Nelson Mandela. She has outlived her husbands. The status of
First Lady has come to stay, some may say.
It is no news that these First
Ladies have constituted themselves into an Association of First Ladies and are
accorded whatever respect and privilege that their status fetches for them. It
is nothing new to be told that so-so-and-so is the First Lady of so-so-and-so
country, meaning that she must of necessity be accorded all that her husband
(the Head of State) enjoys in terms of protocol services and submissiveness
wrought by status as the fount of authority wherever she shows up.
In truth, all that is accorded
the substantive leader is extended to his wife by virtue of her being his
better half. I wonder what is happening in Liberia, where Sirleaf Johnson’s
husband may be regarded as the First Gentleman (if any title of the sort is
ever coined for him).
The bachelor heads of state know
the implications and quickly pull along mistresses to save face. Even then,
such mistresses portray themselves as “founts of authority” to be accorded
whatever respect their status fetches for them. All at the expense of the
ordinary, poor tax payer to whom such a status is useless in terms of a
quid-pro-quo arrangement. What do these First Ladies bring to the “food table”
of these poor tax payers?
Everything is done to prop them
up for whatever they may be to the Establishment. They have offices and staff
to do their bidding, meaning that they are positioned as forces to be reckoned
with. A lot of them even attract foreign dignitaries and act as if they have
the backing of the citizens whose electoral decision put their husbands in
office and accidentally seems to be validating their status as “bed-fellows”.
From what I have observed so far, I can confidently say that these so-called
First Ladies have become authorities unto themselves, acting as if they have
any constituency to rely on. They don’t have any constituency except those doing
all they can to use public funds and other resources (including political
capital) to prop them up. The voters don’t recognize them and will chafe at how
public funds are spent to support their escapades.
These First Ladies have come into
their own and realized that they can also benefit from the system if they
assert their influence; hence, the formation of the Association of First Ladies
(only in Sub-Saharan Africa) where intricate forces have combined to doom
politics, turning it into a game without principles and meant for only those
who know how to “pass the ball” right. Ridiculous!!
They are encouraged by their
realization that they are the “shadows” and should play their cards well. In
Ghana, for instance, the grapevine has over the years revealed to us how much
influence these wives have on their husbands, especially in the appointment of
personalities to offices.
We have heard of their
"pillow-talk" and how much that has done to put some people in office
and to sway their husbands away from their normal paths of self-realization. I
don't intend to bore anybody with anything, but we can tell from what has
happened in contemporary times that the First Ladies of the various countries
have arrogated to themselves some kind of power that doesn't come from the
electorate to do things at the expense of the tax payer.
But let me just go a bit down the
memory lane to bring up some issues so we can engage them in a productive
discussion regarding African First Ladies and what they mean to governance. I
will consider Ghana's case, starting with the First Republic and ending on what
is happening right in front of our eyes today. Please, bear with me. I will do
this brief exploratory survey without any malice aforethought or any intention
to undermine anybody. Mine is just to raise an important issue for public
discussion. So, here I go.
When the British colonial
officers were ruling the Gold Coast, no one heard anything about their wives,
apparently because they were not recognized as political authorities invested
with any power of administration to warrant their being highlighted and supported
on ventures all over the place.
Come in the indigenous African
ruler (Dr. Kwame Nkrumah) at independence and Fathia Nkrumah became a public
figure. Although I wasn't alive to happenings within the period, I have been
informed about how she functioned to become a household name. The overthrow of
Nkrumah sent her packing off to the land of her birth (Egypt). Whatever Fate
befell her serves as a reminder to those who care to know her as Ghana's First
Lady. A lot of politics was done about her, though. She is gone, but not after
giving us children who are known in one way or the other for their role in
contemporary Ghanaian politics (Samia Nkrumah of the CPP and the political
vagrant, Dr. Sekou Nkrumah).
The military cowards who
dislodged Nkrumah from power paraded their wives but no one really took notice
of them for anything. Nothing to write home about such First Ladies, especially
when Gen. Ankrah was said to have more than one wife and couldn't know which
was to be shown to Ghanaians as his legitimate wife (First Lady). The
treacherous Afrifa didn't fare any better. Good riddance.
Busia entered the scene with Naa
Morkor Busia but she didn't last because her husband was removed from office
within 27 months of assuming power. Forget about the titular Head of State at
the time, Edward Akufo-Addo, because his wife couldn't be given any prominence
beyond the titular confines of her husband’s presence in government. When Busia
died, Naa Morkor lost it all, including her own South Odorkor residence that
the Rawlings government expropriated for the benefit of the cadres of the
revolution. Akufo-Addo’s wife might not even be known to people of her
generation. Dust!!
In comes Kutu Acheampong with his
frolicking. His wife, Faustina, came across as the First Lady but had more to
worry about in terms of her husband's unbridled womanizing antics than doing
anything to register herself as a First Lady who could achieve prominence on
the political scene. Another good riddance.
Bring in General Fred Akufo whose
wife didn’t get that much latitude to be seen all over the place as the First
Lady of Ghana in a tottering and teetering military regime. The same goes for
Fulera Limann, wife of the President of the 3rd Republic, who
entered the Osu Castle a nonentity and left as such. Nothing to remember her
by.
When Jerry Rawlings first burst
onto the political scene, his wife (Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings) was an
unaccomplished worker at the textiles division of the former United Africa
Company (UAC) in Accra. No condition is permanent, we know. Thus, Lady Luck
smiled on Nana Konadu when Rawlings returned to power on December 31, 1981, and
she established herself as a colossus under the umbrella of the 31st
December Women's Movement. Her activities, utterances, and political posturing
can't be forgotten anytime soon, especially if we consider why she is still
adamant and has formed the National Democratic Party to protect her political
interests and push the Rawlings agenda in reverse (The legitimate channel for the
Rawlings phenomenon is the NDC, which is larger than Rawlings and his wife put
together).
Nana Konadu and Rawlings are two
sides of the same coin. Don't ask me why. Those who know what she was as a
First Lady will explain it all—even as she can’t still bring herself to realize
that she can’t rise above the status of a First Lady. Even the dreaded Okumkom Nana
Akwasi Agyemang can come to terms with reality because of how he got uplifted
to become an important figure in the Kumasi sector of the Rawlings
administration (someone who had earlier been humiliated by being forced to
carry human excreta for whatever offence he might have committed against the
system as determined by the revolutionary Rawlings administration).
Indeed, Nana Konadu's role as the
First Lady of Ghana is a whole history to be written for whatever it has
contributed to the entrenchment of the status of First Ladies in African
politics. Is it about using women's power to achieve political success or about
using the umbrella of the so-called "Affirmative Action" tag for personal
political ambitions? Don’t ask me. A pathetic Quixotic adventure that backfired
when Rawlings turned a new leaf to the blind side of Nana Konadu?
In truth, though, we must concede
that Nana Konadu did accomplish some positive gains for sustaining the Rawlings
phenomenon. That Rawlings phenomenon has its positive side, especially in its
leading to the establishment of the 4th Republic. Ghana has
experienced much stability as a result of Rawlings effort. Anybody who doubts
this fact needs serious (mental health) examination at many levels.
On the flip side, Nana Konadu singularly
gave the status of "First Lady" in Ghana (and Africa) a huge boost
that has sustained it ever since, even though her own fall from grace to grass
should be telling those following in her footsteps that there is always a day
of reckoning ahead. Her influence on Rawlings is legendary (at least, the man
himself has ever made utterances to that effect even as she has said that he is
the best cook because he cooks for the family). Too much for them; but it must
be said without ceasing that Nana Konadu's exploitation of the status of First
Lady set an alluring precedent which is still being exploited by African women
lucky to become the wives of Presidents or military rulers on the continent.
I shall return…
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E-mail:
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