Drama at form collection

Everywhere you turn in this party, somebody is plotting something and he has planted booby traps in your way. Imagine, the party announced the dates for the collection of expression of interest and nomination forms. The money is even something else. All those millions of naira that you must pay in order to collect the […]

Everywhere you turn in this party, somebody is plotting something and he has planted booby traps in your way. Imagine, the party announced the dates for the collection of expression of interest and nomination forms. The money is even something else. All those millions of naira that you must pay in order to collect the form. Just for the form! I even stood up during the caucus meeting and said why is our party charging so much money for the form? Are we confirming what people are saying that politics is cash and carry, that it is only money that matters? They said no, it is in order to discourage unserious aspirants. How do we know an aspirant is unserious just because he does not have N20 million to buy a form, or that somebody is serious just because he has that money?
So at the caucus meeting, the governor said it is better for us in Tafki State to get our house in order. That it is not good for all the eight governorship aspirants in the state to go to Abuja and give them N20 million. He put it cleverly, that governor; he said, “When many people in Tafki State are looking for what to eat, should we carry N20 million times 8 and give to Abuja people so that they will go to Hilton, dine on caviar and pop champagne?” He proposed instead that all the aspirants should go and try to come up with a consensus candidate. That in the meantime, the party should go and buy only one form so that whoever emerges as the consensus candidate should fill it. When the legal adviser got up and said forms are sold to aspirants and not to state chapters, the chairman Sallama Maikudi told him to sit down, that he only knows the law but does not know politics.
I was taken in by the governor’s rhetoric and I agreed to the suggestion. I even signed a paper saying I agreed with the resolution. But when I came back home and told my aides, Maikahon Karo vehemently objected. He said it was a trap. That what the governor wants to do is to delay until it is too late, when he has secretly arranged for his anointed candidate to go and secretly collect the form. I began to agree with Maikaho when the meeting that was to take place to agree on a consensus candidate kept failing. For five consecutive days the meeting was slated and it always failed. Every day the party chairman brought one excuse after another and reassured us that the meeting will hold the next day, only for it to fail again.
So we made our own arrangement to go to Abuja and collect the form. I sent my younger brother to the bank to make a bank draft. Can you believe it, while I was waiting for him to come back, the party chairman phoned me. He said, “Alhaji, why are you making a bank draft to buy the form? Did we not agree to wait until the consensus is reached? Right now your brother is in the bank trying to make a draft. What is it for?” I said, “Chairman, I am tired of your antics. You are not serious with the consensus meeting. Every day you postpone the meeting. Your plan is to delay us until it is too late while your candidate has got his form.” The chairman began swearing that it is not like that, that the meeting will hold tomorrow. The bank manager was also part of the plot because he refused to make the bank draft, saying their network is down.
That night we left Birnin Tafki for Abuja. We did not even wait to go by air because they will see us at the airport and we don’t know what plan they have got there. We arrived Abuja late at night. First thing in the morning we went to my bank, made a draft and then went to the national secretariat. Can you believe it? We were told that it is the assistant organising secretary that sells the forms for Tafki State but that he had travelled. I said I must see the organising secretary and they said he is in a meeting and cannot see anyone. While we were standing there and arguing, Tsinin Kusa saw him slip out through the back door, enter his car and zoom off.
We knew then that we had to do something drastic. The next day we went to the secretariat and hid in a tinted glass vehicle until we saw the organising secretary enter his office through the back door. When we went to his secretary, she said he was not yet in the office. Maikahon Karo ran the door and threw it open, and we saw the man sitting there, hurriedly packing some papers and trying to sneak out again. We accosted him and said we must get the form since we had already paid the deposit. The man was stammering; he said that they did not expect so many people to be able to pay the deposit so they printed only a few forms. That the national chairman told them to ration the forms so they allocated only two to Tafki State and they have already been bought.
That was when Tsinin Kusa grabbed the man’s hand. He said, “Look here, organising secretary. I know your hometown very well. I know your grandfather’s house. I know all your uncles and I know their houses and their farms. You either give Alhaji that form or you will see what will happen to all of them by weekend.” That was how he opened his drawer and gave me the form.