First Lady Patience Jonathan had a clear motive of humiliating Hajiya Nana Shettima, wife of Governor Kashim Shettima, at a scheduled meeting in the Villa and it was part of the reasons the governor’s wife sent a representative at the meeting and remained in Maiduguri to prepare for her planned trip to Chibok where she met with parents of the abducted girls in order to support them.
Mrs Jonathan was yesterday reported accusing the governor’s wife of showing less concern over the abduction because she didn’t attend meetings held by women at the Villa on Saturday and Sunday.
Press secretary to the Borno governor’s wife, Aisha Muhammad Hassan, in a reaction yesterday said while Dame Patience painted a different picture, Mrs Shettima had actually travelled to Abuja all the way from Maiduguri on April 28 and, on the evening of that day, she met the first lady at the Villa and took two hours to brief her on the schoolgirls’ abduction as well as her (Mrs Shettima’s) personal effort and that of her husband, Governor Shettima, towards the freedom of the girls. Some wives of service chiefs and national women leader of the PDP, Mrs Kema Chikwe, were present when the governor’s wife met with the first lady.
Hassan noted that it was shocking to the governor’s wife when she saw Dame Patience on the television accusing the governor of Borno as being responsible for the abduction. It became clear to the governor’s wife that from the body language of the first lady and some of her close associates at the Saturday meeting, there was high possibility that the first lady’s demand for the governor’s wife on Sunday was to humiliate her by accusing her husband to her face in the midst of participants at the meeting and she thought it was better she concentrated on her planned trip to Chibok on Monday morning.
Hassan explained that before her meeting with Dame Patience on April 28, the governor’s wife had held a meeting with a coalition of women groups that included stakeholders of Chibok, officials of the National Council of Women Societies, wives of security chiefs in Borno State, the Christian Association of Nigeria, the Federation of Muslim Women of Nigeria, Association of Christian Widows, Association of Muslim Widows, the National Association of Women Journalists, selected female professionals that included university lecturers, political appointees and the principal of the attacked school after which a communique was issued as was reported by the media
