Aisha Buhari Award: A Mother’s Plea To Nigerians for Soldiers

Mothers’ or women by their nature are hard to please because of their meticulousness. They are critical and painstaking. They have more time to observe family members and everybody. The verdict of a mother is often faultless and when they chose to dole out blessings, it is because they are more silently studious in the family or community and knows who deserves it.

Hajiya Aisha Buhari, wife of Nigeria’s President Muhammedu Buhari is one mother who is not given to simplicities. She is someone who cannot be easily impressed or satisfied.  Aisha Buhari is strict and only appreciates what is genuine and humanly inspiring. These are the virtues that motivates her as a wife and mother.

In Brussels, the capital of Belgium, Hajiya Aisha Buhari received a prestigious award for her enormous contributions on women and girl-child education, much as her other numerous pursuit of noble causes in Nigeria and around the world.

The award presented to her by the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander is in recognition of her outstanding role in gender equality and empowerment. She has proven that outside her role as the superintendent of the home or domestic affairs, as wife of President Buhari, she has competencies to stretch her energy to other areas of service to humanity.

This is in spite of her confinement to the Kitchen by her husband. The award also justifies the recognition of her selflessness and sacrifice for service to humanity which has become her abiding passion, as evident in her opening remarks at the award event under the theme “Women’s Role in Global Security,” during the Women’s Forum in the Crans Montana, staged in Brussels.

Also, Hajiya Aisha Buhari has not failed on the home front, but she is desirous to see to the betterment of the lives of humans, especially women, as manifest in her innovative mobilization of other first ladies globally and wives of governors in Nigeria to support and crusade the complete eradication of diseases such as tuberculosis, which have been a human scourge for ages.

To complete her excitement or pleasure  and  without doubt or hesitation, Aisha instantly dedicated the award to the gallant men and women of the Nigerian Army under the command of the Chief of Army Staff  (COAS) Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai.

She conveyed her unrestrained feelings in these endearing words; “I whole-heartedly dedicate this award presented to me by the Belgian deputy Prime Minister …. to the Nigerian Military men and women who have lost their lives and those at the war front battling to restore peace.’‘

Not many Nigerians may understand or fully comprehend the importance of Aisha’s remarks, while dedicating the award to the unfaltering men and women of the Nigerian Army. At home in Nigeria, much as the international community, Nigeria is reputed for everything odd, but the country is today positively hailed for defeating Boko Haram Terrorists (BHTs).

Nigeria has carved a niche for itself as one country in the world with the capacity to humble terrorists and foreign nations which are still suffering under its peril look unto Nigeria as a country where something can be emulated.

Indispensably however, the success of BHTs war in Nigeria is the collective efforts of the Nigerian military and even civilians’ as the badge of Civilian Joint task Force (C-JTF) on the terror war attests.  But it is also not in doubt also that the Nigerian army under a tactful leader, Gen. Buratai went to extremes in ensuring their father land is not perpetually held hostage by bands of terrorists.

The record of their dedication, performance and endurance in the BHTs war to lift Nigeria to this enviable pedestal of peace and global veneration is in public domain.

But briefly put, it was under Gen. Buratai that insurgents began to voluntarily surrender themselves to Nigerian army, vowing never to get back to terrorism again.  It was under the same Buratai that Nigerian territories (14 LGAs) in the Northeast which the terrorists annexed were reclaimed and a bubbling rural and community life long been deprived by the people have been restored. These accounts can go on endlessly.

But what most people have failed to acknowledge is the fact that the triumph over Boko Haram insurgents, the joys of a restored life to thousands of Nigerians and the improved international image of Nigeria came with a heavy, unquantifiable cost to families and the nation.

Hardly do Nigerians speak about Nigerian soldiers felled by bullets or bombs of the terrorists in the course of exchange of gun fire. They don’t even want to be reminded that these soldiers too are human beings, who also have families (wives and children) to feel their absence.

Its self-gratifying to feel satisfied that a soldier’s job is to die in battle. Not contesting it because he signed his life away upon enlistment into the army.  But do the women married to soldiers and their  children  deserve no modicum of sympathy for losing dear ones or being widowed or orphaned by the circumstances’ of  death of their families’ breadwinners? Aisha is saying, these soldiers do not only deserve sympathy, but love and affection or even assistance to trudge the rough paths of life without the pillars of their families.

It is the plea and a call to change of disposition by a mother,  Hajiya Aisha Buhari, wife of President Buhari . She has essentially pricked the conscience of Nigerians and the entire world by dedicating the award to the irrepressible men and women of Nigerian soldiers.

By this simple gesture, she is tasking every Nigerian to wake-up from slumber in appreciating soldiers still battling the war and their colleagues who are dead. A mother is always a mother, and Aisha has exhibited the natural virtue of kindness known only to motherhood by this award dedication and Nigerians should listen.

Ola writes from Brandenburg Technology University, Cottbus, Germany.