Some Nigerians have criticised the First Lady, Remi Tinubu, on social media, for reportedly instructing Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State to stop singing before delivering his speech at the 10th coronation anniversary event of the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi.
In a viral video that surfaced online on Monday, Mr Adeleke was preparing to give his speech when Mrs Tinubu walked up to him and whispered to his ear, prompting the governor to giggle.
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Afterwards, she was seen leaving the stage, but she quickly returned and angrily told the governor that she would take the microphone if he continued with his song. The governor muttered something about “the protocol,” and continued with his speech.
At the event held at the king’s palace in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Mrs Tinubu was honoured with the traditional title, Yeye Asiwaju Gbogbo Ile Odua.
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Other dignitaries present at the event included the wife of the Vice President, Nana Shettima, Lagos State Governor, Jide Sanwo-Olu, Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former First Lady Patience Jonathan, former Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, and the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar.
Reactions
Reacting to the viral video, one X user, OurFaveOnlineDoc, wrote on the platform, mimicking the first lady, using the content of the video: “I’m giving you 5 more minutes to finish your speech. The music is enough; that’s not what I asked you to do. But the governor continued singing. She came back and reiterated: I will turn off the microphone. Stop the music. Unbelievable disrespect.”
Another X user, Ifeanyichukwu Samuel, said, “Remi Tinubu is commanding a democratically elected governor 5 minutes to wrap up his speech? How did we get here?”
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“Constitutionally, she is a nobody compared to a whole Governor. Even her husband, the president, has no right to disrespect an elected Governor that way,” A.A. Possible stated.
One Emma Ik Umeh said the president’s wife’s action belittled the governor on live television. He called it a shameful act.
“I am gutted by the video I just watched where the Governor of Osun State, Sen. Ademola Adeleke, was speaking, the wife of the President, Remi Tinubu, rose up and motioned to him in a very condescending manner. The way she spoke to him, from that video, was disgraceful and belittling of a sitting Governor. I cringe.”
“Clearly, decorum was lost. An unelected citizen does that to a duly elected incumbent Governor. Sigh! This shameful act was done on camera, televised live. What the wife of President Tinubu did was an embarrassment to the whole of Osun State and Nigeria at large. What is it with first ladies acting in such a dictatorial manner? From the wife of late Yaradua, to Patience Jonathan, to Aisha Buhari and now Remi Tinubu,” Mr Umeh added.
RBiakpara on X said, “I have said it repeatedly that many Nigerians don’t understand democracy. And this comes from the very top. Adeleke is the elected Governor of Osun State, Remi Tinubu is a deluded Empress – she has no office and wasn’t elected. Remi, Seyi and their market woman daughter walk with an air of pain as if the fact that INEC installed Tinubu as president automatically confers some kind of power on them. Such power-drunk tyrants, all of them.”
On Instagram, the popular blogger Tunde Ednut wrote, “Na wa oo! What kind of thing be this? A sitting Governor was singing, and the first lady told him to stop, or she would switch off his microphone. Can you imagine? What kind of embarrassment is this? It is really not nice at all.”
Another user, Arakunrin, said that the president’s wife insulted the whole people of Osun State and not the governor alone.
“The governor and the people of Osun State were completely disrespected by the first lady, who misbehaved and lacked decorum in the action she envisioned. In the eyes of the public, the first lady’s behaviour is shameful and disrespectful. How else would she feel if someone treated her in such a way without regard?”
“Why is she behaving as though she is in charge of the governor when her office as the first lady is unconstitutional? Sad,” Arakunrin concluded.
“The First Lady was rude to the governor, to say the least. Being a first lady does not give her any constitutional authority to disrespect the governor of her state in public,” an X user, Olaitan Mayjorh, said
The X user name, Toby, said the governor had the power not to host the first lady.
“In a sane country, the governor can decide not to host the first lady, and heaven will not fall. But this can only happen in a state where they generate internal revenue without expecting federal allocations. Democracy is not for Africans.”
“This will surely happen when you don’t know power of office you were elected for. Most Nigerian politicians don’t know the meaning of the office they occupy. An Unelected person talked to a sitting governor in this manner,” TrustGod Omoakin said on X.
CAPT4IN NLA, another X user posted “This is utterly wrong and should be condemned by all. The First Lady had no reason under any guise to come and hurry the Governor in that manner; this event didn’t happen in the Villa, but in Osun State. Clearly, she’s arrogant, same attitude she had in the National Assembly.”
Facebook user, Akintunde Babatunde, further called out the First Lady to apologise publicly.
“You know I am not a fan of many Nigerian politicians, and I have often argued that the Governor of Osun State needs to read the room better and carry himself more consistently in a truly gubernatorial manner. That said, what happened here is distasteful to watch. This was an event in Yorubaland, a culture that prides itself on omoluabi values.”
He continued, “Beyond that, the governor was the host of the event. Even if he were not, there is something called basic human decency in how we deal with people. Sadly, I have come to realize that this is a principle many Nigerians no longer live by.
“The ‘do you know who I am’ mentality has eaten very deep, exposing how classless and entitled many have become. To see this level of disrespect shown to a sitting state governor on live television is deeply troubling. Regardless of political differences, he deserves a public apology,” he concluded.
The Osun State Government has yet to react to this clip.
The Senior Special Assistant on Media to the First Lady, Busola Kukoyi, did not pick calls or reply to Whatsapp messages from PREMIUM TIMES, for comments.
The spokesperson to Governor Adeleke, Adewale Rasheed, also refused to comment on the issue when we reached out to him.
Past occurrences
Some past Nigerian first ladies had also clashed publicly with government officials.
In 2013, PREMIUM TIMES reported a conflict between a former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, and Rotimi Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State, who later became transportation minister.
Mrs Jonathan had publicly seized the microphone of Mr Amaechi after mentioning demolitions, escalating into a broader political rift.
“At the primary school, there were houses around the primary school too close for comfort, no football field, no playground, no space at all around the school and I turned to the wife of the President and said: ‘Your Excellency Ma, we have not finished with this building, we would buy the houses that are surrounding the primary school and demolish them.’
“Once she heard the word ‘demolish’, the wife of the president flared up and took the microphone from me and started all sorts of diatribes that I won’t mention here for the respect I have for the office of the wife of the president.
“I felt that it was wrong to confront the wife of the president publicly. When she finished, I withdrew and walked onto the bus. When we got to the ground of the reception, which was not part of our programme, which she just included by herself, I came down from the bus and went to sit in one of the primary schools,” Mr Amaechi said at the time.
The tenure of late President Muhammadu Buhari was no exception. The former first lady, Aisha Buhari, reportedly clashed with a former Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, over alleged fund diversions.
These incidents further highlight recurring power dynamics in the influential, though unofficial, role of Nigeria’s First Ladies.
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