Patience Jonathan Missing? Not Seen Since Buhari's Victory

The wife of the President, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, has not been seen in public since Goodluck Jonathan was defeated in the March 28 presidential election by General Muhammadu Buhari of the APC.

The President had last Tuesday conceded defeat and called Buhari on the telephone when it became clear from the results released by INEC that he had lost his re-election bid to the slogan of Change.

Dignitaries including serving and former government officials had visited Jonathan to commend him for his maturity to concede defeat and solidarise with him on his loss.

But since then, many Nigerians have not seen the President’s wife.

One of the visitors to Aso Rock told Punch that Mrs. Jonathan also received visitors inside the President’s official residence same day.

“After meeting the President in the new Banquet Hall located within the premised of his office, I also visited the First Lady inside the President’s residence before leaving. She was in high spirit when I met her,” the former government official said.

But she did not attend the Good Friday service held inside the Aso Villa Chapel with her husband neither did she attend the Easter Sunday service inside the same chapel.

Mrs. Jonathan and the President’s mother, Eunice, had always been accompanying Jonathan to such services.

The last time she was seen in public was penultimate Saturday when she and her husband voted at their polling unit in Otuoke, Bayelsa State.

While many believed however that she must have been too devastated by her husband’s electoral loss to appear in public so soon, Punch's investigation showed that she might have travelled out of Nigeria.

A Presidency source who pleaded anonymity said that Patience Jonathan travelled to the United Kingdom during the week to sort out some domestic issues.

“She is in UK. She may use the opportunity of the trip to visit her children,” the source said.

It will be recalled that Mrs. Jonathan had during one of the presidential rallies she organised ahead of the poll claimed that General Buhari would send she and her husband to jail if he was elected.