The most charming piece of news I have come across in a long time was an online article in the Washington Post celebrating the arrival of Cameroon’s First Lady Chantal Biya.

To be specific, Mrs Biya’s signature hair was the focus of the piece, although some attention was paid to the person who carries the said hair around on her head. The Orange Pompadour has attracted the attentions of fans around the world for years.

That coiffure is a study in materials design (how does one create such a magnificent hue and texture) and cutting edge experimental bionic architecture (it has been known to compete with skyscrapers for height). Not to mention the social commentary that it engenders about the nexus of hair, feminine power and Francafrique sartorial politics.

No true scholar of contemporary African history can deny that francophone Africa has always influenced the continent’s sense of style for the better. They don’t seem to have any fondness for the socialist suits or any other ill-fitting clothing in unflattering colours used as camouflage to signal a leaders’ closeness to his people.

An important aspect of creating the right couture environment is the First Lady’s role in patronising houses of fashion both local and international so as to support their income base as well as create a look that we ordinary women are duty-bound to imitate.

It is not as though there were a lot of room for the office of the First Lady on the continent; I think that we are conflicted about how much we are willing to tolerate from a presidential spouse.

There are two models in operation: Either we expect Mzee’s wife to be relatively inconsequential — a distinctly Anglo attitude that can probably be traced to the women-hating Victorians who colonised us — or she may be at the very pinnacle of queenly powers.

Obviously Chantal Biya is a First Lady of the queenly variety. Reading about how Madame Biya’s flaming head has been hypnotising the Americans, I couldn’t help but think of a very different story I read a couple of weeks ago about a woman, possibly in Somalia, who was shot dead for defying orders to cover her hair and face. And I thought to myself: “What do the pan-Africanists have to say about this extreme of contrasts?”

In their role as official presidential spouse, how much agency do First Ladies get to affect the quality of life of their fellow women? Arguably it is an accidental appointment, and in a representative democracy that can make things a little bit iffy considering you get the job due to a relationship to the head of state.

Is it fair to apportion them public monies for their chosen works if they don’t have a constituency? Often we get around this by designating these women national “mothers” out of respect but I don’t know if labelling them by their reproductive ability makes things better.

Besides which, having them as Womb of the Nation seems like a ploy to limit their activism, if you ask me, to safe and relatively apolitical causes.

The more active ones, when they are not busy telling fellow citizens why they should vote for their husbands again, spend time with women’s groups that grow organic honey and weave organic baskets, children who need organic school meals and regular immunisation, etcetera. Somehow all this happens without confronting the knottier problems that cross the borders of our countries.

Maybe there are African alliances of these powerful spouses to combat female circumcision, to keep girl-children in school and build networks of women’s shelters and so on and so forth.

There’s a form of pan-Africanism that would probably interest me a little bit more than watching slide shows of grinning African presidents sandwiched between Barack and Michelle Obama looking like they just got an early Christmas present. As it is, Michelle is a powerful role model but the US has a history of formidable presidential spouses who left surprisingly resilient legacies behind.

I am a great fan of fabulousness in First Ladies and will always remain so. Yet whenever I hear the stories of magnificent shopping trips to Asian and European centres of style to replenish Madame’s wardrobe and collection of expensive yet improbably coloured hairpieces, I can’t help but think: How many schools, how many birthing kits and health worker salaries have been sacrificed. In the case of Madame Biya, the answer probably doesn’t bear thinking about.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com. E-mail: [email protected]