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Nigerian President to Merkel: My wife belongs in the kitchen the living room and the other room
Making sexist jokes isn’t good foreign policy
Abu Najakku
The Daily Trust
Joking about keeping your wife in the kitchen doesn’t go over well when you’re standing next to the world’s most powerful woman, said Abu Najakku. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari made this stupid gaffe in Germany last week, at a press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Someone asked him about his wife Aisha’s recent, shocking comments that there was a “cabal” in his party manipulating political appointments and that unless Buhari cleans up the administration, she may not vote for him next election.
Instead of just “laughing it off,” Buhari sniffed that since he has more political experience than Aisha, “I claim superior knowledge over her.” Then he added that his wife “belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.” Buhari is not a misogynist—after all, he made a point of “educating Aisha and his many daughters.” But Merkel was appalled, and the incident has entirely overshadowed our president’s otherwise successful visit to Germany. It’s time for Buhari, 73, to get himself a political adviser, someone who can anticipate potentially troubling questions and “proffer inoffensive but intelligent retorts for the president well ahead.” Winging it is not good for him, his foreign policy, or for our nation.
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