Fast track to anointment

We began with spiritual attack. Clerics from ten different towns in Tafki State were properly mobilised. They organised their students to read the Qur’an 100 times in each town. Alhaji Gohe said it was like firing a spiritual Katyusha rocket. We began to see the effect soon enough because the morning after the recitations, one […]

We began with spiritual attack. Clerics from ten different towns in Tafki State were properly mobilised. They organised their students to read the Qur’an 100 times in each town. Alhaji Gohe said it was like firing a spiritual Katyusha rocket. We began to see the effect soon enough because the morning after the recitations, one special adviser said he overheard the Governor telling an elder that I could do well as his successor because I know the inner workings of the civil service.
But we didn’t leave it there. The following day Maikahon Karo went to Kwankwobilo to see Boka Maikunkeli. Maikaho is the only man in Tafki State who talks anyhow to Maikunkeli. He is not afraid of him at all. He said, “Maikunkeli, there will soon be a party caucus meeting where His Excellency will reveal who he is supporting in this race. You must twist his mouth so that he will anoint Alhaji, unless if you are a fake witchdoctor! I have been patient with your failures for too long! This time you must deliver. Tell me what I should go and bring, and I don’t want to hear foolish things like mucus from the nose of an adolescent lion or the late night urine of a baby buffalo. Who will go near a baby buffalo in the night and collect its urine when its mother is lying nearby? So I don’t want to hear that!” Maikunkeli was unusually sombre. He said, “Okay, you don’t have to get a lion’s mucus or a baby buffalo’s urine. The skin of a blue crocodile will do. If you can’t get that, just get me the first egg laid by a widowed cobra.” Come and see the fight between Maikaho and Maikunkeli that day.
Even while Maikaho was tangling with the witchdoctor, we took other practical steps. I chose a weekend and went unannounced to the farm of our state party chairman, Sallama Maikudi. He likes going to his farm every Sunday to watch his sheep, cattle, chicken and horses. Usually you find a lot of people milling around, including chairmen of local government party chapters who go there to greet him but on that day, I found him sitting alone with only farm hands milling around. It was a sign of what Maikaho said, that the chairman himself is falling out of favour. Trust our politicians to smell from a mile away who is powerful. Once they suspect that your influence is waning, they will melt away.
The reception he gave me this time was much better than the one he gave me several months ago when I first visited his farm. That time he was very powerful, and he told me to stop thinking of the governorship and to go for a lesser post since I was new to politics. This time, Sallama told me that the party committee on zoning will recommend that the governorship candidate should come from Tafki Central [which includes my local government, Gebe] while Tafki South [which includes Goshin Bauna’s local government, Tsamiya] should be given deputy governor. He said he will prevail on state working committee members to adopt that recommendation even if the Governor does not like it. I was very happy to hear that. I immediately gave Alhaji Sallama ten seats for the lesser hajj.
Alhaji Gohe and I then went to Abuja. We spent a week there, and in that time we accomplished a lot. We found out that His Excellency has been frequenting Abuja in recent weeks. He was lobbying for three things. Number one, he wants to be given automatic ticket as senatorial candidate for Tafki North. Number two, he wants to be allowed to anoint his successor and thirdly, he wants his anointed successor to draw money from the “Fund for New Leadership.” It is a secret fund that they have built up in Abuja, to finance pro-Presidency candidates. We managed to reach two of the members of the New Leadership Shortlist Committee which manages the fund. We struck a deal with them; they said if His Excellency does not anoint me in Tafki State, his candidate will not get any money from the fund.
I came back from Abuja very tired and my third wife Goggon Abuja came to me and said, “Maigida, you didn’t even have to go to Abuja. This matter can be solved right here in Birnin Tafki.” I said, “How?” She said, “Through Her Excellency the First Lady. There is nobody in this town that influences His Excellency like the First Lady. People say he even swears by her. When he says he will not do something even for First Lady, people say that is it, he has sworn!”
So I said, “How will you get to her? You have never been close to her.” Goggon Abuja flashed that her smile, the one that used to dazzle me the first time I saw her in her uncle’s house. She said, “We have a mutual friend. First Lady confided in our mutual friend that she does not trust Goshin Bauna because if he becomes the governor, his wife will stop him from continuing to finance her pet project, Women’s Solidarity. She said if she can find anybody that will promise to continue financing her NGO, she will tell her husband to anoint him.”
I was reclining in the sofa, my eyes half closed but when I heard what Goggon Abuja said I sat upright. Sleep flew out of my eyes. I said, “Look here, my sweetheart. Get up right now and go to that your friend. Let her take you to the First Lady. Tell her that when your husband becomes the governor, he will not only continue to finance her NGO but that I will double the allocation to it. In fact I will build a permanent secretariat for it, a befitting one and I will also ensure that it gets a befitting office in every local government in this state. I will equip all the offices with the best furniture and I will put all the staff on salary. If there is any other thing that she wants to be done for that NGO, tell her that I will do more than that. And you, if you convince her I will catapult you above the two senior wives and make you the First Lady.”