Aisha Alhassan taunted Atiku over his resignation from APC- Mama Taraba

Is the minister brave enough to stand by her words, or will she chicken out?

On Tuesday, November 28, 2017, Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan, met with President Muhammadu Buhari for the first time since the resignation of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, from the All Progressives' Congress (APC).

The minister, popularly called Mama Taraba, had been in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, for the inauguration of the Policy Framework and National Action Plan for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism which the president launched.

Usually, a meeting between a president and his cabinet minister would not attract any interest out of the ordinary, but events from only two months ago mean this meeting must have been a little uncomfortable for Mama Taraba.

A trip down memory lane

Back in September, as part of a delegation paying a courtesy visit to Atiku, Mama Taraba declared her support for the former Vice President to become Nigeria's president in 2019.

Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan with former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar
(Metro Watch Online)

The former Taraba state gubernatorial candidate said, "Your excellency, our father the next president come 2019, God willing. In your presence are your people, your supporters who will continue supporting you till forever."

She didn't stop there.

In a BBC Hausa interview that followed shortly after her endorsement of Atiku, Mama Taraba made a very bold promise.

The serving cabinet minister said she was ready to put her money where her mouth is and quit Buhari's government if he makes her choose between him and Atiku.

She said, "Let me tell you today that if Baba said he is going to contest in 2019, I swear to Allah, I will go before him and kneel and tell him that 'Baba I am grateful for the opportunity you gave me to serve your government as a minister but Baba just like you know I will support only Atiku because he is my godfather' if Atiku said he is going to contest."

Mama Taraba with President Buhari in rosier times (Nairaland)

She further explained why she won't get behind a possible Buhari reelection bid.

"In 2015 prior to the election, when Buhari decided to contest following intense pressure, he declared that he was going to serve one tenure, that is four years. And to date, no one can claim Buhari has expressed any desire to stand for re-election in 2019."

The minister even went one step further to dare a dismissal from the president for her comments, saying he is not naive enough to sack her.

"Baba is not a mad man like those calling for my sack," she boasted.

Public condemnation

It's an understatement to say that Mama Taraba's very public endorsement of a potential rival to Buhari in the 2019 election was not favourably received by the leadership of the APC.

While many called for her resignation or dismissal, she was involved in separate high profile meetings with APC chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun and President Buhari's Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, to explain her comments.

After her meeting with Oyegun, the party's spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, said she had apologised for the insensitivity of the comments and that she had been forgiven.

He said, "As a senior member of this party, her statements represent an act of indiscretion because with the kind of position she occupies even within the party, she is a party leader in her own right, what she said was not what she was supposed to say at the time that she said it; that she ought to have exercised greater judgement than she did and she acknowledged that yes, maybe she ought not to have…maybe the timing was wrong and she apologised that if she had put the party in any difficult position, she apologised."

Enemy within the ranks

Before that public forgiveness was granted, unofficial spokesman of President Buhari and Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, made telling comments about Alhassan's status in the Buhari administration.

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai
(Twitter/@KdPolitical)

According to him, Mama Taraba had never been a supporter of what the president stands for, and was appointed against the advice of senior party members.

He told State Correspondents on September 8, "Her comments are not surprising, she has never been a supporter, she has never believed in Buhari's ideology. So, I am not surprised. As a Nigerian, as an individual, she has every right to express her views and support whoever she wants.

"What I am saying is Nigerians should not be surprised or shocked. This has always been her position because from time. She has never supported Buharism or what Buhari stands for.

"Being part of Buhari government is a different thing because the government sets policies and if you are a minister you execute the policies. You can't execute those policies while pursuing a different brand of politics.

"In the APC, she was never in the Buhari camp, she did not support our candidates during the National Convention, she didn't vote for Buhari during the primaries."

Atiku's resignation

In what was a widely-expected move, Atiku finally resigned as a member of the APC on Friday, November 24, after mounts of growing discontent.

Atiku's resignation came as a shock to absolutely no one (The Nation)

In his signed resignation letter, the 71-year-old accused President Buhari of neglecting him and condemned the APC for "instituting a regime of a draconian clampdown on all forms of democracy".

In a reaction to his exit from the ruling party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) urged him to return to the party where he served as the deputy to former President Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, and lost the primary election to former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011.

Even though Atiku failed to mention which party he'll be joining, or whether he'll even contest for the presidency in 2019, he's expected to pitch his tent with the PDP after a series of private meetings with the party's leadership.

While speaking to State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa on the same day as Atiku's resignation, Governor El-Rufai warned him that no Nigerian can currently match President Buhari in popularity and contest against him in an election.

Clear and present danger

With every day that passes now since Atiku's resignation, Mama Taraba's position as a cabinet minister becomes untenable, a messy situation that she naively created by and for herself.

Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan with former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar
(1Push)

When the party forgave her back in September, her endorsement of Atiku had been played down because "after all she is not saying she supports a member of another party".

With Atiku's resignation and expected recruitment into the opposition PDP, that position is about to change in a laughable way.

By endorsing Atiku for the 2019 presidential race at a time when her current principal hadn't ruled himself out of a reelection bid, she created a situation that pits her against the administration that's been generous towards her.

While her personal loyalty to Atiku, despite her political obligation, is refreshing and, perhaps, even commendable, publicly airing it and making an ironclad declaration appear as foolish now as it was back in September.

With Buhari very likely to declare his intention to seek reelection in the coming months, it's time to really consider where Mama Taraba figures into all of this now.

She dodged questions from journalists who asked her to address the issue on Monday after the meeting with Buhari, but it'll have to be addressed eventually.

Will she resign from her cabinet position and resign from the APC in tandem with her godfather?

Will she bite her tongue, renege on her words and continue as minister with egg on her face?

Or, with a cabinet shakeup looming, will President Buhari stamp his authority and fire her before it all becomes one big mess all over again.

It's undeniably intriguing waiting to see how long it takes for the other shoe to drop.