VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA
From the political scene, to the judicial chambers, to the criminal arena, to social media space and on to marital beds, stories emanating out of Nigeria last week ranged from the curious to the incredulous, to the puzzling and on to the dubious in short order.
There was this story that Benue State Government appointed “Her Excellency Mrs. Scholastica Ben-Sor” as “Coordinator, Office of the First Lady,” a veritable first in the history of rigmarole Nigerian public service. This post is curious. Benue State has had no First Lady since May 2023, because the Governor, Hyacinth Alia, is a Roman Catholic Reverend Father who has sworn an oath of priestly celibacy, so he has no wife.
Nor is this a new thing in Benue State. From January 1992 to November 1993, the state similarly had no First Lady, because Governor Moses Adasu was also a Roman Catholic priest. Protocol katakata erupted because First Lady Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu was to visit Benue State last Friday, so the state government hit on the idea of appointing a shadow state First Lady to receive her. They got that idea from Malawi. During Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s long reign as President of Malawi, which ended in 1994, he had no wife, so he instead appointed Miss Cecilia Kadzamira as Official Hostess. That position carried with it all the duties, powers and privileges of a First Lady. Like Malawi, like Benue.
