President says his wife belongs in a kitchen, that's a crying shame

President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments about his wife, Aisha, belonging in a kitchen and some ‘other room’, is an utter shame and should be condemned in the strongest terms possible by everyone.

Worse, it brings to the fore the President’s utter disdain for women in an age where the womenfolk is tearing down gender barriers, showing the menfolk exactly how to run democracies, transforming moribund board-rooms into profitable ventures and breaking sporting records.

We shouldn’t even be discussing gender gaps in the 21st century because there no longer exist--there shouldn't exist. But here we are.

First Lady Aisha Buhari has been in the news for slamming the values of some Buhari appointees.

She also  threatened not to lead the get-out-the-vote movement for her husband should his name turn up on the ballot in 2019.

"The president does not know 45 out of 50, for example, of the people he appointed and I don't know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years," Aisha Buhari told the BBC in an interview that has since gone viral.

A cabal with no idea what the APC manifesto and vision reads like, has since taken control of her husband’s Presidency, affirmed Ms. Buhari.

“Some people are sitting down in their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position," she lamented.

And then the clincher: "He is yet to tell me (if he’ll run in 2019) but I have decided as his wife, that if things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before. I will never do it again," Ms. Buhari vowed.

Asked to respond to his wife’s comments in Germany where he’s on an official visit, Buhari took the low, predictable road.

"I don't know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room”, Buhari said with a smirk.

“So I claim superior knowledge over her and the rest of the opposition, because in the end I have succeeded. It's not easy to satisfy the whole Nigerian opposition parties or to participate in the government”, he added.

“The other room"?

What the heck does that even mean?

You are not likely to read a more misogynistic, chauvinistic, deprecating comment about women this year. Except maybe from a certain Donald Trump,  who’s made a career out of “grabbing them by the pussy”.

Buhari and Trump certainly don’t belong in our world—a world of intelligent, classy, decent  women. A world where patriarchy is a dying, revolting breed.

No, Aisha Buhari doesn’t belong in “the other room, or kitchen or living room”. She belongs right at the head of the table with women like Hillary Clinton,  Angela Merkel, Chimamanda Adichie, Beyonce, Angelina Jolie, Serena Williams, Obiageli Ezekwesili, Christiane Amanpour, Isha Sesay, Michelle Obama and other accomplished ladies who have made our world prosper and a better place.

To think Buhari was making this statement right beside Merkel, a lady whose reign as German Chancellor has seen that European country cement its place as a super power, drives home the irony of it all.

Buhari was pelted with allegations of thumbing his nose at women during his campaign for the Presidency. On this evidence, the accusers were right.