By: Ahmed Salami
To many people, the exulted position of ‘First Lady’ is merely an acronym, a name politically invented to massage the ego of the wives of Governors and Presidents of countries across the world. However, a cotorie of First Ladies in the contemporary world had, in their own right, been able to add value and candour to this much celebrated position.
There is an adage that says if you put a shallow-minded person in a high position, his emptiness and parochialism would reduce that position to shreds of cards but if you put a large-hearted, highly inspired and self motivated person in a low office, his depth of inspiration and strength of character would not only enlarge the office but would also make the office to be worthy of global reckoning.
The Eleanor Roosevelt of this world had corrected the long time notion that First Ladies are mere glorified wives and mistresses of the Number One Citizens.
Given her deep passion for service and unmatched compassion for humanity, Eleanor perfectly complemented the exploits of her husband, Franklin Roosevelt, in office as former President of the United States of America.
However, within the continent of Africa, there is yet another woman who had also tremendously added meaning to the office of the First Lady by re-inventing it to become an agency for social re-engineering and human empowerment.
Just like Eleanor, Erelu Bisi-Adeleye Fayemi, the Mother-General of Ekiti State, is giving a new meaning to what “First Lady” means.