FIRST lady Dame Patience Jonathan has begun making plans to stand down as the president of the continent's leaders' wives association the African First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM) following her husband's loss in Nigeria's recent presidential elections.

In Nigeria's March 28 presidential elections, President Goodluck Jonathan lost to the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenger General Muhammadu Buhari. With the official handover due to take place on May 29, Dame Jonathan will now stand down from her position two months ahead of the end of her tenure.

Dame Jonathan was elected the mission’s president at its seventh summit held in Abuja in July 2012 and her tenure would have expired in July 2015 when a new president would have been elected. However, because she will cease to be Nigeria’s president’s wife from May 29 when her husband will hand over power to the president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, she summoned an emergency summit of the mission on May 15 for the purpose of electing her successor.

In a copy of the invitation to members dated April 6 and personally signed by the president’s wife, she explained that she summoned the emergency summit to ensure that there would not be a leadership vacuum in the organisation as it happened in 2010 when her predecessor left office without handing over. She said her desire was to put in place a standard that would strengthen the organisation and ensure effective mechanism to guarantee seamless takeoff for the incoming leadership.

The invitation partly read, Your Excellency may recall that Nigeria was re-elected President of the AFLPM at the seventh summit in Abuja in July 2012. With the recent election in my country and a new government coming on board from May 29, 2015, it has become necessary to convene an emergency summit of the AFLPM to facilitate a smooth and formal hand over to the new executive committee that will pilot the affairs of the mission for the next two years.

Dame Jonathan said: “This emergency summit is proposed for Friday, May 15, 2015 at the interim secretariat of the African First Ladies Peace Mission, Abuja by 2pm. The summit will, however, be preceded by the fourth meeting of the executive bureau by 9am, on May 15 at the same venue."

Special assistant to the president on the AFLPM, Martha Onwuzurumba, who is the wife of the president’s chaplain Obioma Onwuzurumba, is said to be in charge of the mission’s secretariat. Established in 1995 after the United Nations’ Conference on Women in Beijing, China, the mission is not a non-governmental organisation aimed at promoting peace and harmony in Africa.