Home OPINION COLUMNISTS Aisha In Social Media ‘Terrorists’ Den, By Yusuf Ozi-Usman

Aisha In Social Media ‘Terrorists’ Den, By Yusuf Ozi-Usman

Now, it is the turn of the minister of women affairs, Hajiya Aisha Alhassan to face what has come to be known as social media terrorism.
It all started when she, along with other members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, paid Sallah homage on one of the top leaders of the party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. To be sure, Atiku Abubakar, Aisha Alhassan, President Muhammadu Buhari and all those who were in Atiku’s house were all in the same APC.
And all that Minister Aisha needed to do to get into trouble with the social media is for her to greet Atiku making reference to him as President of Nigeria from 2019. She spoke in Hausa language.
What exactly did minister Aisha say, in Hausa language that got so much hysteric publicity: “Your Excellency, our father and our president by the grace of God, come 2019.”
And in Hausa tradition and language, the word: sai ka yi or any of such words are used as mark of respect for elders or leaders.
When Aisha spoke this word in such a sentence of a few letters, the social media terrorists, beginning with website, dailynigerian.com in a video leak, took such word basically on its deeper and more interpretative meaning.
Since then, the air has been charged with different headlines by the terrorists, and the main aim is to cause disaffection between President Buhari and minister Aisha.
And to be sure again, it is a known fact that Atiku is the main financier of APC in general and financier and political god-father of Aisha in particular. And that speaking in a way to show her gratitude to him, again within the precipice of Hausa/Fulanu tradition means virtually nothing to her current position, which, even according to her, is divine.
Recall that the same social media terrorists had, in the early part of this Buhari government, went to town with all sorts of cooked up stories to disparage or demonise such leaders as information minister, Lai Mohammad; senior special assistant to the President on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, the leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Atiku Abubakar and others, with the sole aim of clashing them with President Buhari.
The same social media terrorists gathered around the country home of a former Senator, Authur Nzeribe not quite long ago to bring out his new look, as if it had anything to do with the socio-economic and cultural life of the country.
On the issue of Aisha Alhassan, the social media terrorists have only displayed a crass ignorance of the political terrain under which she and Atiku are operating vis a vis the circumstance of her being appointed as minister by President Buhari.
In the first place, the terrorists, if it should be repeated, forget that all the people involved in their terrorist attack, from Buhari to Atiku belong to the same party. It is not a political wisdom, which I’m sure President Buhari knows very much about, for all his ministers and appointees not have people outside the federal cabinet that made them what they are today, especially as such god-fathers or mothers are within the same APC family circle.
The picture which the terrorists wanted to paint: that Aisha Alhassan now has a divided loyalty, cannot therefore hold, because, the minister has not been found wanting in her official duties as minister.
If anything, Aisha had simply demonstrated what I would call responsible politicking or politics with human face. It would have been hypocracy for her to distance herself from the person that ‘brought’ her up in politics simply because she had now found a new ‘lover.’
Of course, the timing of Aisha’s subsequent reaction to the social media terrorists’ attack when he spoke in a BBC programme, is entirely another subject to be treated separately.
But, my honest advice to all those in government is, please beware of what you say and do, because the terrorists are at the corner. They would even concoct what you don’t say or do. [myad]