Maikudi’s purse is leaking

I peeped through the window and saw a man talking excitedly to my gateman. Before I knew it, the gates swung open. I saw the car’s owner from the window when he alighted; it was our state party chairman Alhaji Sallama Maikudi.I hurried downstairs to receive him. He was already seated in the living room […]

I peeped through the window and saw a man talking excitedly to my gateman. Before I knew it, the gates swung open. I saw the car’s owner from the window when he alighted; it was our state party chairman Alhaji Sallama Maikudi.
I hurried downstairs to receive him. He was already seated in the living room when I came downstairs. He had on a long jallabiyya and he had tucked a long prayer bead, the tasbih, in his fingers. “Alhaji,” he said before I even sat down, “sorry to come to see you so early. I came straight from the mosque because I have to see you this morning. You know an iron can only be bent while it is still hot. By the time it cools down, you cannot bend it.”
“Chairman,” I said, “is it you who is visiting me so early in the morning? I hope there is no trouble.” I was pretending to be calm, but Alhaji Sallama is the last person that anyone can fool. He is sagacious in his knowledge of human nature; his capacity for manipulating human emotions is endless, and he has his ears firmly planted to the ground in the politics of Tafki State.
Still I was shocked by what he said. “Alhaji,” he said. “I came here early because I know that those men of yours will soon be here. Maikahon Karo and Tsinin Kusa are there typing that letter calling for a special caucus meeting to pass a vote of no confidence of me. I am here to ask you to please stop them from going ahead with that their project. Just because they did that in Abuja does not mean we should also be doing that here in Tafki. Is it everything that they do in Abuja that we must do here? All the high handedness they said the National Chairman was doing in Abuja, did I do it here? Did anybody leave this party because of me? Even the former councilors who defected, didn’t they come back? So Alhaji, I want you to stop this your project before it goes very far.”
I was still in a daze when I saw Alhaji Sallama off to his car. I kept denying that there was such a plan. Not long after he drove away, Tsinin Kusa arrived with the typed letter in an envelope. We said we were going to go over the letter this morning but when Tsinin Kusa brought it out, I saw five signatures on it. One local government chairman, two members of the state assembly, one ex-officio party officer and a former party secretary had already signed the petition calling for Alhaji Sallama Maikudi’s removal as state party chairman.
“Tsinin Kusa!” I said. “We haven’t even done corrections to the letter and you already got some people to sign!” “Yes now,” he said calmly. “There is no time to waste. The best time to move is now, when people are still happy that the national chairman has been removed. They are saying if a big masquerade like that can be removed, what is a small masquerade like Sallama? After all, who made Sallama our chairman? Is it not the former National Chairman? Even the Governor did not want him, but he went to Abuja and brought a letter from the National Chairman, that they were once doing business together at the coast. This is the time to remove him. Many people are ready to sign the petition because they know he has no cover anymore.”
Maikahon Karo walked in at that point. As he sat down he unrolled a newspaper wrap. He had bought cooked cassava with hot pepper along the road. “I like this woman’s cassava,” he said as he began to eat. “She cooks it over big logs of firewood so it cooks very well, unlike the one in the market that they cook with kerosene stove.”
“Maikaho and Tsinin Kusa,” I said, “Alhaji Sallama just left here. He knows what we are planning. Don’t you think we have to change our plan?” “We wanted him to know,” Tsinin Kusa said as he extended his hand into Maikaho’s wrap to pick some cassava. “I went to the chairman of Gangare Local Government last night and asked him to sign. You know his father is Alhaji Sallama’s very close friend. Let him know what we are doing. If there is anything he can do about it, let him do it.”
I still cannot understand the ways of politicians. I thought if you are planning something like this, it is better to do it secretly. In the civil service, whenever we were planning something, we made sure nobody knew about it until we were ready to act, and I said so. Maikahon Karo laughed loudly. “Alhaji,” he said, “in politics nothing is secret. How could we go about soliciting signatures in secret? As soon as you talk to one person, everyone will hear it. So the sooner Sallama knows about it, the better. Who knows, he may come up with an interesting offer and we can leave him alone.”
That was exactly what happened. As the sun was setting that day, Alhaji Sallama Maikudi’s black Mercedes car again rolled into my house. As he walked towards me, he said, “I want to say my Maghrib prayers in your house today. That is why I brought an extra tasbih. Maybe you forgot your own on your civil service desk.”
We both laughed, then he said, “Before we pray, I have something to tell you. You heard on the radio that president is sending his list of ministers to the Senate very soon? We have removed Goshin Bauna’s name from the list. His name is not going to any Senate now. I am going to Government House from here to see His Excellency. You are the best name that we should send. Unlike Goshin Bauna, you will not face any difficulty in Senate screening. They will only ask you to take a bow. Now, give me that paper that people are signing. I want His Excellency to tear it with his own hand.”