Operation Fire For Fire

So we had to move the rally to my hometown, Gebe. Even there the police tried to stop us. The DPO came and said we should not hold the rally in the morning because the ESEP campaign train will be passing through Gebe that morning, that we should wait until afternoon. We protested because the […]

So we had to move the rally to my hometown, Gebe. Even there the police tried to stop us. The DPO came and said we should not hold the rally in the morning because the ESEP campaign train will be passing through Gebe that morning, that we should wait until afternoon. We protested because the people of Gebe are farmers and if you wait until afternoon you will not see anybody. All of them would have gone to their farms.
Just before the rally we went to pay a courtesy call on the district head, Fagacin Gebe but the traditional ruler left for the farm just before we arrived. Alhaji Gohe had seen him the night before and concluded all arrangements for the courtesy call. We later heard that the Governor sent the Local Government chairman to warn the Fagaci not to receive us so he bolted from his palace just before we arrived. When we went back to the rally venue, from afar I could see dust and smoke enveloping the whole place. I asked what was happening; they said some blacksmiths came out of their section in the market, wielding knives and swords. They said no rally will be allowed there until we pay them the cost of twenty bags of charcoal that they said our boys destroyed. Our Youth Wing members were brandishing clubs and broken bottles and the fight had even started before Maikaho was able to settle it. It turned out that the leader of the blacksmiths was one of Maikaho’s bodyguards during the last election.
The day after the rally we began our campaign tour. We decided to go that day to nearby Tsamiya Local Government, which is Goshin Bauna’s home town. We wanted to really take the town by storm so that we can later show pictures to people around the state that Goshin Bauna is not popular even in his own Local Government. Tsinin Kusa is our expert in rally mobilisation. He went out very early in the morning to three different local governments near Tsamiya. In each one he went to the motor park and hired 20 Hiace buses. He then lined them up and said whoever entered a bus would be given N1,000 but that in addition food and water will be distributed and the bus will take him to Tsamiya and back home. Within thirty minutes all the buses were full and were off to Tsamiya.
More trouble was waiting for us there. No one molested us when we entered the town and even visited the district head of Tsamiya. We went and started our rally and in the middle of my speech, herds of cattle appeared from three different directions. Nearly 200 cows charged into the crowd and people were fleeing towards the western end, the only side of the football field that did not have cattle. We soon realised that two tipper trucks had brought thick mud and dumped it on the western side, and our supporters were getting stuck in mud as they ran in that direction.
That night when we got back to Birnin Tafki I went and complained to the Police Commissioner. You can’t believe what the man told me. He said, “Alhaji, you are coming here now to say the police should protect you. Since when you started campaigning in this town, did you even come here to greet me? Do you know how we fuel our cars? Do you know where we get food to eat? You think we are your slaves, that we should come and protect you because you want power. What about all those thugs that you call your Youth Wing, led by that rascal Maitawaye? I am even looking for him for suspected murder.”
That was why we decided to strengthen our Youth Wing. Maikaho was very angry with what happened to us during our rallies in Gebe and Tsamiya Local Governments. He said it was all my fault because I was the one who said we should do things softly softly, even though they told me long ago that campaign is not about gentlemanliness. He said in politics, if you are gentle people think you are a fool and should be toyed with. That the only language our political opponents understand is tit for tat. So he declared that from today, for the rest of the campaign, it is Operation Fire For Fire, FFF for short.
FFF was launched the very next day in Idon Ruwa Local Government, which surrounds Birnin Tafki. Goshin Bauna’s campaign team had assembled 10 buses, painted in ESEP colours and emblazoned with their candidate’s pictures, for a major rally. At dawn our boys stormed the park where the vehicles were kept. The drivers took to their heels and our boys managed to get the keys of seven of the buses. They drove them to a nearby mechanic’s workshop and sprayed all of them with black paint, then pushed them into a ditch. They vanished when they heard that policemen were coming. Later the Commissioner of Police sent a message that I must pay for the damage because my boys did it. I said I will never pay a kobo because it was not my boys who did it. Meanwhile I gave Maikaho a message of N10,000 each for the boys who did the job.
All the candidates in Tafki State were called to Police Headquarters and we were asked to sign an undertaking to keep the peace. I said I will not sign until the police promise to treat all of us equally. At that point the Emir of Tafki spoke and said, “Alhaji, you are an elder. You should sign so that we will have peace in this state.” I brought out my pen and signed so that they will not say I disrespected the emir but when I went back home and told Maikahon Karo and Tsinin Kusa what we signed, they said, “Alhaji, it was you who signed a piece of paper. We did not sign anything so we are not bound by your agreement.”