Frantic attempts at reconciliation

We also held our own parallel congress on a secondary school football field near my house and when the national secretariat refused to recognise our congress, I defected with all my supporters to SIP and they promptly elected me as the governorship candidate. Now my posters are all over the place. My campaign office has […]

We also held our own parallel congress on a secondary school football field near my house and when the national secretariat refused to recognise our congress, I defected with all my supporters to SIP and they promptly elected me as the governorship candidate. Now my posters are all over the place. My campaign office has also been redecorated. All the symbols of my former party have been removed and SIP posters are now everywhere.
But the shameless ESEP people did not give up. They now started what they call “reconciliation” moves. The first person to try to come to my house was ESEP state chairman Sallama Maikudi. He timed his coming precisely when we were in the mosque performing sunset prayers. He rushed in together with ESEP’s treasurer Musa Kutunku. They quickly performed ablution and joined us in the congregational prayer. Even as the prayer was going on members of our Youth Wing were glancing at each other, that Maikudi and Kutunku were in the mosque. As soon as the prayer ended, they rushed out and surrounded the mosque, demanding to know why the two ESEP men entered my house when I had left the party for them. They brought out clubs and whips and stood at the two entrances to the mosque. When Kutunku saw them, he quickly stood up and continued praying endlessly. For his part, Maikudi pulled out a long prayer bead from his pocket and pretended to immerse himself in prayers.
It was Alhaji Gohe who pleaded with our Youth Wing members to allow them to come out. Addressing the Youth Wing leader, he said, “Maitawaye, are you Boko Haram that you want to attack people inside the mosque?” The Youth Wing members then left the entrance of the mosque but they went and stood at the gate of my house. It was with difficulty that Maikaho and Tsinin Kusa managed to bring Maikudi and Kutunku into my house. They were so shaken that they spoke incoherently, pleading with me to help them to escape, that they only came to greet me and to apologise for what happened at the state congress. In the end we took them through the kitchen to the backyard of my house, brought a ladder and pushed them over the wall into my neighbour’s house. We could hear my neighbour’s dog barking fiercely when the two of them landed in his house.
The next day, Goshin Bauna telephoned and said that he would like to come and visit me. I said, “Goshin Bauna, please don’t come to my house. Yesterday when Maikudi and Kutunku came it was with difficulty that we managed to get them out. My Youth Wing members were very angry with me, that I did not allow them to finish off those hypocrites. You, if you come, how can I get you out? Please stay in your house and do your campaign while I do mine.”
He didn’t listen to me. That afternoon, we were meeting in the conference room of my office when we heard commotion outside. We peeped through the window and saw a dozen Mobile Policemen at the gate, their AK-47 rifles at the ready. Maitawaye and his boys had swung the gate shut and locked it with a huge padlock. They also dragged heavy objects and lined them up at the gate, to reinforce it. Maikaho went to find out what was happening. He learnt that it was the Speaker of the state assembly who brought a reconciliation team from ESEP headquarters in Abuja, that it was led by the National Deputy Chairman. Maitawaye said over their dead bodies will any ESEP man step into that office.
Later, the Governor himself phoned and pleaded with me to come to Government House and meet with the visitors from Abuja. I said, “Your Excellency, is it now that you know my phone number? The day you changed the venue of the state congress, how many times did I call your number and you refused to pick? All the text messages that I sent to you, which one did you reply to? I even concluded that you deleted my number from your phone. I am surprised that you still have my number.”
When I refused to go for the meeting, they used another tactic. At around midnight my father-in-law, the father of my second wife Goggon Makka, phoned and said he wanted to see me urgently in his house. He does not even stay in Birnin Tafki; he is just visiting from Mecca where he lives. I therefore rushed to his house. When I entered his living room I saw the Governor, the Speaker, Sallama Maikudi, Musa Kutunku, Goshin Bauna and the ESEP national deputy chairman. They were all sitting there, drinking zobo and chewing kola nuts.
As soon as I entered, Maikudi stood up and laughed loudly. He said, “Alhaji, you threw me out of your house, you refused to allow Goshin Bauna to see you, you locked the gate against the speaker and you refused His Excellency’s invitation to come to Government House. But now here you are. Who are you to refuse summons from your own father-in-law? You cannot beat us in this town. If you think you know one thing, there is another one that you don’t know!”