 Welcome back. We did promise you were coming back with someone else who is going to be talking about yet another topic. And now it's the alleged defamatory tweet. Ayesha Buhari is to testify against a university student. If you haven't read the story, Nigeria's first lady Ayesha Buhari is billed to testify against Amino Adamu, a student of the Federal University, Dutsey Jigawa State, for allegedly defaming her. Mr. Adamu, who is 24 years old, was alleged to have published a defamatory statement on his Twitter handle against Mrs. Buhari in the allegedly offending tweet. Mr. Adamu, who is a final year student, studying environmental management, posted a picture of the first lady with a caption in Hausa saying, Mama is feeding fat on poor people's money. The tweet was posted on 8th of June, but Mr. Adamu, trailed by a team of detectives, was arrested in Dutsey, not west Nigeria on 18th of November, and wixed to Abuja. After nearly two weeks in detention, Mr. Adamu was arraigned on Tuesday before a judge, Yusuf Hallelu, of the Federal Capital Territory High Court at Meitama, where he pleaded not guilty and was remanded in Sulejah Prison in Niger State. And so we have Mr. Olubengah George, a political analyst and head political desk, African Civil Society Forum, joined us. Welcome to the program, Mr. George. Thank you for having me. Good morning. So we have heard what happened. Aisha Buhari is going to testify, and this young man has been arrested and detained. Let's get your reaction to that. Well, I think for me it's a mix of reactions, and I will actually be addressing the issues from different angles. First of all, I would like to say that the formation of any kind or any sort is totally condemnable. So the fact that the young man, you know, spoke about the first lady, that's the wife of Mr. President, having fed fat, you know, with public funds is a sort of a condemnable statement, especially when we look at it in the context of the word body-shaming. You know, today body-shaming is a very, very condemnable act in our social space, especially because of the effect it has on people who happen to be victims. We've had several people who, if they do not have the strong will and a great sense of self, of conviction of themselves, you know, they take to different things. Some take to suicide, some take to all kinds of negative effects. But thank God it's the wife of the president and nobody can actually be excused, I mean, where this is concerned. So yes, if we take it from the angle that is body-shaming the wife of Mr. President, then I think it's a condemnable statement. Do you think the tweet is about body size or the fact that people are suffering and they are looking good? The first family is looking good? The truth of the matter is office, I mean public office in Nigeria, if you have looked back from time, comes with its pecs. And I believe that if you happen to physically add up well, it's maybe one of the pecs that you get from being wife of president. This is not the first time we're going to have a president or a political person who, perhaps, was as slim as me in the past and then get into office. And maybe because of the comfort, let's not forget that when you get into that office, the only thing that you get to do physically is maybe your mental capacity to deliver, to make decisions and then control issues and events. But you take that away, what you have, you are kind of relaxed. You do it in the most relaxed atmosphere. So if we draw from that, I would say that being in office, being that way maybe normal. But let's not also forget that the first lady, if we go back in time, sometimes she was out of the country and then she came back and there were rumors whether she was pregnant. I mean, there were all sorts of things about the lady. So I personally want to believe that if she has had it and she's made... I just don't feel that it is perhaps something that she maybe loves so much. That's why I decided to use the word body shaming. If she is in that office, I mean, she's wife of the president, she has the right, if she's comfortable with the way her body looks, then it's fine. If for somebody to come and say she has fed fat on government money, we must also realize that there are people who are not also in government, who by virtue of having life improved and get better for them, have also added to any position of office. Just a moment. Something really funny just came to my mind as we're talking about this. This statement that Adamu made is the direct opposite of the statement the host band of Aisha Buhari did. I mean, the Mr. President, when he was trying to commend the Inspector General of Police then and he said, you can see that he's working, he's very thin. There's no fat in his body. It shows that he's working really hard. If the Inspector General at that time had taken offence and said that the president was body shaming him that he's not fat enough, would that been justifiable? Well, definitely. I think context matters in every event, in everything that we do. The context from which a statement is made is what really determines how we will interpret it. Yes, the context from which Mr. President was talking about the IG is a totally different context. So I do not think that we can compare both. But talking about comparing really, we must realize that the First Lady Aisha Buhari does not officially have a role to play. I think most of her roles in governance are perhaps ceremonial. There is no statutory or constitutional role, so to speak, for her to have filled as an Nigerian or as the wife of President. Hence, all she has basically as far as I think, or I know, is comfort. Maybe for other persons who might have seen that as an opportunity to exercise or to impact society, maybe she's doing that at her own pace, at her own level. And she is perhaps getting the results that she so desires. And so maybe by virtue of that comfort, she's adding weight. I do not think that the context from which Amino is speaking and the context from which President Buhari was referring to the former IG is I don't think they are the same context. Yeah, they could be different. But just finally now, some people are getting worried about what is happening because of another reason maybe not related. People have come out to condemn this action of the First Lady as she just using power, abusing power the way it should not be abused. It is because she's the way she is. We remember there is no name that the wife of the previous president was not called. There's no name. Still, there was nobody that went to court for whatever reason. But now that the public outcry has been that she shouldn't have done this. At least some people believe that she shouldn't have done this. They have come out with another revelation that this guy who made this statement had threatened the people who were condemning the killers of Deborah. You remember the young lady that was killed in the North by some extremist. So they have come out with that information that he once upon a time threatened the people who were condemning the killing of Deborah. Now, the question is, why this information now? Are we being blackmailed into accepting the fact that this guy is so bad and he deserves to go to prison or to be hanged? They are seeing it as a blackmail. What do you see briefly now because we are rounding off? Well, it perhaps could actually be that way. I mean, given a doggy bag name so you can hang it, it could be. I mean, there are definitely different sides to actually looking at the issue on ground. But I would like to speak more to the first lady having this guy arrested. I think I will speak from my own point of view that this administration has been quite intolerant where it comes to setting issues, especially where it comes to criticism. I may pull to say that because we would remember that the same space from which this point was made is the same space that was banned for several months in this country you do remember and businesses were shut down, businesses that could profit from this. And why? Because Mr. President felt personally abused and the handblast of this at the time and the handblast of Mr. President felt that Mr. President had been disrespected. But I think we are in democracy and while in democracy, Frisbech is one of the other of the days, one of the things that should be the qualities of thriving democratic government. We also should also, from that point of view, I think every person that is in leadership should be tolerant and should be able to know that, well, this is one of the things that democracy gives to us as a people. However, I will still not totally support that we should now take advantage of this Frisbech. Like somebody said, the only Frisbech is guaranteed. We cannot guarantee what happens after Frisbech. So why did this condemnable in my view that this young man is arrested? If you ask me if I was in her shoes or I was in precedence, what would I have done? I would simply tell you that I would ignore this young man, especially because she gave an example. I'm talking about the previous administration of President Good Love Jonathan who, you know, experienced all sorts of abuses. We have seen it before, but because they understood that this is democracy and you cannot stop people from saying what they want to say no matter how much you try. You know, people will still have their opinions whether wrong or right. What we must continue to do is continue to crunch and ties the people to say the right things and provide the right information. And if I'm public office, we should act accordingly so that the expectations of people are met at least to a very, very large percent. You cannot satisfy every human being that is certain. But I mean, we should be able to a large extent play by the rule of law so that what is good for this is also good for Uganda. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Lubengar George, for coming on the show. Your insight has been really very good. And we do hope that we can have more engagements on more or different topics in the future. Thank you so much for coming. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Okay, we've been talking with Mr. Lubengar George, a political analyst and head of the Political Desk African Civil Society Forum. We'll take a break now.