BBC'S TRANSLATED INTERVIEW EXCERPT WITH AISHA BUHARI, WIFE OF PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA AS OBTAINED BY THE FOREFRONT

People had high expectations from your husband given his antecedents. It appears things are at a snail’s pace now. What do you think is wrong?

Replies and more details after the cut>>>

In my view, I am not a government official. But I will speak as a woman, a mother. We all knew that our first four years would be tough. But the main worry now is, we all know that no single individual can claim sole credit for the emergence of this government. It is a culmination of efforts. Unfortunately, more than half of the people that contributed actively to the coming of this government are today sidelined. Instead, a new set of people that are not even politicians, that are not known, have today been imposed on the people. These people did not even know how the government came about. They did not know the campaign promises we made, yet they are hoisted on the people.
Some of these intruders are even bold to say they are not politicians. Yet don’t forget, they are occupying seats meant for politicians.
Remember some lost their wives, husbands, or children in the course of the struggle. Now, even I myself, am not happy with the way things are going. We are just commencing the journey. We are aware that some who worked for us are in government but most are sidelined.
Now people from nowhere are appointed to head agencies. Some of them were even opponents who fought governorship candidates in their states, yet they are given appointments.

Can you name some of them?
Well, everybody knows them. I want to remind them that everyone casted just one vote. Even Buhari himself casted only one vote. Nobody casted 10 or more votes. And 15. 429 million voted us. The people that now impose themselves on Nigerians are not more than three. I am appealing to them to pity the mass of the people and allow things to run properly.
Today, the APC is cracked because those who suffered for it are not carried along while those who were completely out of the picture, who do not even have voters’ cards are the ones wielding power. What I fear for them is the revolt of more than 15 million people.

Is the president personally aware of this cabal and its activities?

Whether he is aware or not, the truth is, the people who voted him are aware.

As the closest person to him, have you brought it to his notice?
I don’t need to tell him. He is seeing it. If you ask him, he does not personally know 45 out of 50 of his appointees today. I don’t know them either, and we have been married 27 years now.

Are you suggesting that the government has been hijacked by a cabal?

Yes. I am also suggesting that those who don’t even have voters cards should leave way for those who genuinely struggled, who knew our vision and mission. When you meet most of these intruders, they tell people they are not politicians. So they shouldn’t have accepted the appointments in the first place, since it is not their field. We know that we shall soon return to the battlefield and with these people sitting on other people’s sweat.

Is it not surprising that it is you, saying that Buhari’s government has been hijacked? Who really are these people?
I don’t know them.

Are you confirming the insinuation that a cabal has actually hijacked power?

Of course I am. Apart from people like Fashola and Amaechi, I don’t know all the others that are running government.

Is it not strange that with Buhari’s experience, some people can hijack his government?

It is indeed strange. Nobody expected that things will turn this bad. Now that it’s this way, and you know that sometimes, a person may be going wrong without knowing it. But then, when he is corrected, he should take the correction. Because in future, whether the General will seek a second term or not, it is the same Nigerians that he will rely on.

Did the General mention to you that he would seek a second term?

He is yet to tell me (if he’ll seek re-election) but I have decided as his wife, that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before. I will never do it again.

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