What I Think of Patience Jonathan

Although many puns, jokes, and even satires continues to be thrown at the person of Mrs. Patience Faka Jonathan, I come away feeling there’s more to this woman. True, she is illiterate, alliterate some may even add, but when I watched the news last night and saw her in charge, commanding and speaking to a large crowd of other women – many of whom are called lettered, educated, schooled and enlightened – my heart did a double take. 

Here was a woman who blunders terribly on her speech when she first began – hardly able to string together a simple sentence and a hoarse voice to go with it. And even with such a predicament, she refused to back down in the shadows of her husband’s high profile status as President of Nigeria campaigning massively for her husband in a way no other educated Nigeria First Lady has accomplished. 

I know you’ll say “but her grammar is terrible”, “she doesn’t represent the kind of picture or elegance and style a First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should exemplify!” “She's gone overboard in overreaching herself in office when it comes to political matters that’s not her purview!”, and so on. That may be true. But for once, let’s try and forget about the terrible grammar, her sometimes unpleasant speech patterns, misplaced anecdotes and lack of linguistic prowess. Let’s look at some of her other not-so-obvious qualities – qualities I believe are essential to success.

How many women do you know who did not go to school, did not finish primary or secondary school who will be so courageous as to take on the office of the First Lady with such bullish attitude? Perhaps this says a lot about who Patience truly is rather than the fact that she’s the wife of the President. Stop and think about that for a moment.

Even though her office is by virtue of her husband’s, she refused to cower in her weaknesses, or feel self-pity for herself to the point where she would have chosen not to be heard but seen – which will definitely epitomize the idea some persons may have as to the role of women in politics and office of high status. Patience could have also felt terribly intimidated by other well-schooled, and possibly more enlightened women, but she choose not to be. Maybe that Office can be intoxicating, I wouldn't know.

Nonetheless, in the course of eight years this woman has surrounded herself with persons much knowledgeable than her; she has gone on to receive some serious coaching in speech reading, audience contact, use of notes, confidence, comportment and so on. To some, however this little improvement may seen negligible even intangible. Some may even say “shame on her! She’s too slow, too dumb,” and so on. Yet you cannot ignore the fact that she has made some effort, made some changes too. And for those who have laughed at her bad grammar, gone on twitter to make fun of her so rudely and yes, disrespectfully, she has completely made sure she denied them money from Aso Rock as MCs! Go figure!

What people should be asking is, why did Jonathan a schooled man marry an illiterate woman when he did long before his political enrollment? Perhaps stomach infrastructure, a listening ear, an unflinching supporter, a caring soul as he saw it mattered more to him than how well she could command the English language? 

Many educated men are covert dictators who would prefer to control their wives. It is amazing how many men marry women with a view to controlling them in the home! Let us hope this was not one of his reasons.

In the end, let us take one or two life’s lessons from Patience Jonathan:

• Always live your dream
• Life is a continuous learning ground
• Self improvement is a way of life
• Mistakes happen but what we do with the knowledge learnt from those mistakes is what brings about success, makes us wiser and better prepared to handle future challenges better
• Don’t always focus too long on your weaknesses to the detriment of improving them and worsening even your strengths 
• Not everyone is going to like you but don’t waste your effort trying to change them to like you. By all means be the best of you as long as you live on this beautiful planet
• Be quick to critique, be slow to criticise
• Stop wasting your energy finding fault, whining and complaining. expend your energy instead on creating solutions. Create. Create. Create.

Patience Jonathan has shown an uncommon courage even if some of you many term it foolhardiness. 

Courage is not the absence of fear: but to feel fear and act!

Fight every form of corruption in your capacity as a Nigerian even when others don’t. All it takes is a few good men doing good deeds consistently to rid off evil. YOU ARE THE CHANGE.

Now, that’s courage!