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By Joke Kujenya

For the first time in Nigeria’s history, we have an acting first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan. What does it mean to act as first lady? Certainly, she wouldn’t be acting as Jonathan’s wife. Would she?

Before her new status as the ‘lady of the house’ in Aso Rock, she was simply the wife of the Vice President until Tuesday, February 9, 2010, when ‘levels’ changed. The substantive First Lady, Hajia Turai Yar’Adua had dwarfed Dame Patience, who might have learnt a thing or two in her days as the underdog. Now that she has a chance to play the role, it would be interesting to see how she would stamp her personality on the office.

Historically, Dame Patience is not the first woman to act as a first lady. Lady Mary Arthur McElroy of Greenwich, New York, was the first on record when her elder brother, Chester A. Arthur, was elected vice-president of the United States of America (USA), in 1880.

At that time, Chester had no idea that he was soon to be president. But in 1881, James Garfield, the then American President, was assassinated, thrusting Arthur into the top spot.

Coincidentally, Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur, Chester’s wife, had died of pneumonia over a year earlier. And because Chester was still in mourning for his wife at the time he became President, he was left without a ‘lady of the White House’, so he called on his younger sister, Mary, to help out.

Mary, it was reported, accepted the assignment bravely although she admitted that she had no idea of the procedures or formalities that went along with the job.

Another woman that had occupied such a position was Jacqueline Aquino Siapno-De Araojo, 42, a Filipino-turned East Timorese. She acted as the first lady of East Timor. She assumed the role because the East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta was single. Thus, Siapno, whose husband was the president of the National Parliament, the second most powerful man in the country, became the acting first lady.

Unlike these two women whose emergence had no challengers, ‘Wahala dey’ is the offing for Dame Patience as Turai’s image still looms large.

The fact is President Yar’Adua has not been pronounced dead. But he is seriously ill and he is said to be on life support machine in a Saudi hospital. Now, that raises some challenge for Dame Patience. For how long will she reign? What will happen if Yar’Adua suddenly ‘resurrects’ and re-emerges on the scene with Turai, who must be missing power?

Now that the beam is on Dame Patience, who incidentally hails from Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta, it would be interesting to see how much of ‘woman power’ she will now wield in the presidency or if she will tread ‘softly, softly’.

Besides, she would likely face greater pressure than she was used to. The public will inevitably compare her with Turai as she plays the role of acting first lady.

Will she also come up with her own pet project now that she would be more visible politically? Her leadership qualities will be put to test more than ever before.

Dame Patience -fair complexioned, roundish, a no-nonsense personality and a trained teacher raised by devoted Anglican parents -is described as a woman that comports herself with a high sense of preservation instinct. Also, she reportedly cares much for her children’s moral conduct by closely monitoring them. Those in contact with her say she is a soft-natured, caring, kind and good woman.

By the way, this isn’t the first time Dame Patience would be an acting first lady. Before the Jonathans came to power at the centre, she had unexpectedly played such a role in oil-rich Bayelsa State when her husband acted for the then beleaguered Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who eventually lost out in the power play, thereby thrusting the woman on the stage as substantive first lady.

Interestingly, the wife of the then governor, Mrs. Alamieyeseigha, had little education and so was regarded as a first lady in absentia. Indeed, the locals were used to calling Dame Patience the ‘first lady’ even while her husband was still the deputy governor.

Effectively, she acted the ‘drama’ till her husband became the Vice President and now, Acting President.

There is a mouldy side, though. On September 11, 2006, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), seized $13.5 million from Dame Patience Jonathan, at the time she was the wife of then Governor of Bayelsa State, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan.

In the reports of The International Herald Tribune, then EFCC spokesman, Mr. Osita Nwajah, reported that the seizure was made after Dame Patience had allegedly laundered the money through an associate. She had allegedly laundered the money through a remote relation, Nancy Ebere Nwosu, a successful businesswoman of remarkable means who had lived abroad for several years.

The incident was reportedly the second time in one month that Dame Patience was hitting the scandal headlines. Earlier in August of the same year, the EFCC had obtained a court order to temporarily freeze N104 million she had allegedly tried to launder through the same Mrs. Nancy Ebere Nwosu. The EFCC said it had reason to believe that the seized funds belonged to the public. In a sworn statement, Mrs. Nwosu implicated Patience Jonathan, the EFCC said.

In her defense, her husband rose to quash the allegations, claiming that the reports were part of a ‘plot to destabilise’ the state.

Now that she is on a higher stage, she would need to demonstrate high morality and avoid acts that might attract embarrassment as she had projected herself many times as a symbol of motherhood and a role model to many Nigerian women.

Her people dub her a true daughter of the Okrikans from Rivers State who is married to a Bayelsan.

Dame Patience reportedly speaks a number of Nigerian languages and is familiar with many parts of country. She actually exhibited her deep familiarity of the Nigerian lingo at a tourism function. She has gone to stand-in for Turai at a tourism function one time. At the event, Dame Patience hinted about her once-upon-a-time jaunts to both Kebbi and Sokoto States. Then, as she greeted the people in their respective tongues, shrieks of joys, frills and thrills greeted her remarks.

Catching in on the moment, Dame Patience displayed her acquaintance with the people and places of Nigeria when she also spoke about the significance of the festivals as viable platforms for peaceful co-existence among Nigerians as a whole.

As the then number two woman, Dame Patience was said to have had a high regard for Hajia Turai Yar’Adua and maintained a warm relationship with the now obscure First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But how much of that remains?

Well, the constitution doesn't know anything like "First Lady". You're first lady so long as the President is around. Any perceived power that a first lady has is only because of her husband, who is the president. I only see a problem if Turai returns to Nigeria, and heads not to Katsina, but to Abuja. Should that happen, and she attempts to live in a public manner (pursuing some of her pet projects and attending programmes) THEN they'll be a problem.