SIGNAL had exclusively reported on Wednesday how President Buhari’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease has rendered him nearly incapable of running the affairs of the Nigerian government, paving way for the Mamman Daura cabal to take over the Buhari administration, a development that triggered off Aisha Buhari’s controversial interview with the BBC.
Mamman Daura is a close relative and long-time confidant of President Buhari. Daura, alongside the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir David Lawal are said to be the forces behind a cabal that has completely hijacked the Nigerian Presidency from Buhari.
In a follow-up report on Friday, an informed source who did not want to be named linked Aisha Buhari’s BBC interview with the possibility of her “separation” from the President.
According to the source, Aisha’s outbursts in her BBC interview were more complicated than simply an expression of a personal opinion on the Buhari administration, stating that her approach was abnormal and goes against the expectations of her tradition and religion.
Her choice of the United Kingdom for the interview with the Hausa Service of the BBC, the source said, explores the possibility of “exile” in the United Kingdom, barring any attempts to reconcile her differences with President Buhari.
In a new twist that lends credence to reports on President Buhari’s health, checks by SIGNAL on Friday revealed that Aisha is currently undertaking a counseling course on co-dependency in the United Kingdom. The details are contained in a bio-data linked to her official Twitter account.
Medical experts explain co-dependency as an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship.
It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with co-dependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. The disorder was first identified about ten years ago as the result of years of studying interpersonal relationships in families of alcoholics.
Mental Health America explains that co-dependency often affects a spouse, a parent, sibling, friend, or co-worker of a person afflicted with alcohol or drug dependence.
Originally, co-dependent was a term used to describe partners in chemical dependency, persons living with, or in a relationship with an addicted person. Similar patterns have been seen in people in relationships with chronically or mentally ill individuals.
Mental Health America itemizes the following as the processes that highlight a co-dependent health condition:
What is a dysfunctional family and how does it lead to co-dependency?
A dysfunctional family is one in which members suffer from fear, anger, pain, or shame that is ignored or denied. Underlying problems may include any of the following:
An addiction by a family member to drugs, alcohol, relationships, work, food, sex, or gambling.
The existence of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
The presence of a family member suffering from a chronic mental or physical illness.
Dysfunctional families do not acknowledge that problems exist. They don’t talk about them or confront them. As a result, family members learn to repress emotions and disregard their own needs. They become “survivors.”
They develop behaviors that help them deny, ignore, or avoid difficult emotions.
They detach themselves. They don’t talk. They don’t touch. They don’t confront. They don’t feel. They don’t trust. The identity and emotional development of the members of a dysfunctional family are often inhibited.
Attention and energy focus on the family member who is ill or addicted. The co-dependent person typically sacrifices his or her needs to take care of a person who is sick. When co-dependents place other people’s health, welfare and safety before their own, they can lose contact with their own needs, desires, and sense of self.
How do co-dependent people behave?
Co-dependents have low self-esteem and look for anything outside of themselves to make them feel better. They find it hard to “be themselves.” Some try to feel better through alcohol, drugs or nicotine – and become addicted. Others may develop compulsive behaviors like workaholism, gambling, or indiscriminate sexual activity.
They have good intentions. They try to take care of a person who is experiencing difficulty, but the caretaking becomes compulsive and defeating. Co-dependents often take on a martyr’s role and become “benefactors” to an individual in need. A wife may cover for her alcoholic husband; a mother may make excuses for a truant child; or a father may “pull some strings” to keep his child from suffering the consequences of delinquent behavior.
The problem is that these repeated rescue attempts allow the needy individual to continue on a destructive course and to become even more dependent on the unhealthy caretaking of the “benefactor.”
As this reliance increases, the co-dependent develops a sense of reward and satisfaction from “being needed.” When the caretaking becomes compulsive, the co-dependent feels choiceless and helpless in the relationship, but is unable to break away from the cycle of behavior that causes it. Co-dependents view themselves as victims and are attracted to that same weakness in the love and friendship relationships.
Why is Aisha Buhari in the UK?
The preceding details have left room for the question: why is Aisha Buhari undertaking a counseling course in co-dependency in the United Kingdom after twenty-five years of marriage to her husband, President Buhari?
If the Alzheimer’s diagnosis and other health concerns of the President are accurate as informed sources have disclosed, this fits well into the pattern of a health crisis that could necessitate a co-dependent relationship in Nigeria’s first family.
Increasingly, the timing, location and manner in which Aisha Buhari has chosen to go public with the BBC interview have strengthened concerns from a wide section of the Nigerian public that there appears to be more than meets the eye.
As if to strengthen the growing concerns, President Buhari in an awkwardly crude reaction to Aisha’s BBC interview on Friday said in Germany before the global press at a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that she (Aisha) “belongs to my kitchen, living room and the other room.”
Many Nigerians have taken to the social media to attack the President’s comments as misogynistic, comparing him to U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The development has added a new twist to the unfolding drama among the Buharis; concerns over the President’s health, rumours of divorce and the reign of the Mamman Daura cabal in Aso Rock.
SIGNAL could not reach both presidential spokespersons Garba Shehu and Femi Adesina for comments at the time of filing this report.
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