I won’t have office for first lady – Buhari

Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), retired General Muhammadu Buhari has said he will not have an office for First Lady should he emerge victorious at next year’s presidential election. “The [office of] First Lady is not in the constitution, so there’s no official role for them,” he said.

In an interview he granted in Kaduna, General Buhari added that ministries, which are constitutional, should be allowed to play their own roles. “There is the Ministry of Women Affairs, and so on,” he said.

However, Buhari said, women are going to play very important roles in his administration. “I was raised by my mother, as I lost my father when I was under six, so I know what a woman can do if given the chance,” he said, adding that he sees them as his cornerstone.    

General Buhari also spoke about the situation in Chibok, Borno State where over 200 schoolgirls were abducted by terrorist group Boko Haram and remain in captivity. “Imagine a mother with a teenage daughter there and for seven months has no clue where she is,” he said, adding that women have to look after a child for at least six years, making the pain of losing a child great.

“Roughly one year in their tummy and from the time they are born until they clock six, children tend to assume they know everything, but it is women, their mothers, who are responsible for them,” he said. “I have the greatest respect for women, he said.

The full interview, in which he spoke on various issues, will be published tomorrow in the Weekly Trust.