Our presidential candidate’s visit

Before I entered SIP nobody was even talking about it in Tafki State and it was the same in most other states. SIP’s national headquarters in Abuja is totally disorganised. It is only a few active state branches like our own that make them to sit up. All the active branches became so only because […]

Before I entered SIP nobody was even talking about it in Tafki State and it was the same in most other states. SIP’s national headquarters in Abuja is totally disorganised. It is only a few active state branches like our own that make them to sit up. All the active branches became so only because of decampees from ESEP after the primaries. We are the ones that make our national officers to sit up because we need them to communicate with INEC.
When you go to our national headquarters you don’t see anybody. The national chairman is a retired Army Colonel and everyday he is at the Officers’ Mess, messing up. The national secretary is also not in the office most of the time. I hear that he is a dealer in wood planks and most times he is at his depot at Dei Dei market. Last time we were looking for him to sign our nomination forms, his wife said we should go to Karu market in Nasarawa State. We found him there supervising the loading of wood planks in a trailer when nomination forms were lying on his table and INEC’s deadline was approaching.
In fact, the least serious of them all is SIP’s presidential candidate. Can you believe that he has never visited Tafki State throughout this campaign season? It is only now, with one week left to the presidential election that he phoned me and said he is coming to campaign in Tafki State. I even said to myself, so if this election had not been postponed by six weeks it means you will never have visited Tafki State? How do you expect people to vote for you when they have never even seen you? Anyway, we decided to sit up and make our presidential candidate’s visit a success. We planned an elaborate program for him, prepared food, booked hotel accommodation, mobilised our members, arranged for a press conference, and we arranged a television interview.
Even before he arrived I began to suspect that the man is not serious. The day before his coming the national secretary phoned me and said they want the presidential candidate to come to Tafki by chartered flight which he said is befitting of his status. I said yes, that is very good. The next thing the secretary asked me was if I will charter the plane for him. I lost my temper and said, “Have I ever chartered a plane for myself? Can’t you enter a commercial plane like everybody does? Must you charter a plane if you don’t have money?”
The next day we went to the airport with hundreds of our supporters to welcome him but when the Whirlwind Air plane landed he was not in it. We tried his phone number, it was switched off. After I returned home he suddenly arrived by road late in the afternoon with only two other people, the national secretary and his personal assistant. We had booked 20 hotel rooms, hired large buses, slaughtered two cows and four rams only for three of them to come.
Early the next day we took him to address party leaders from across Tafki State. In fact, our presidential candidate is a case. I am not even sure of his real CV. People said he is a retired policeman but he didn’t mention that in his CV. He said he is a businessman who once traded in gold dust in Ghana. He said he is the executive chairman of ten companies but all of them are briefcase companies just like this political party that he went and registered. He began apologising to the party leaders for not coming to Tafki State all this while, saying he was very busy campaigning in other parts of the country, that he knows Tafki is sure banker that was why he took us for granted.
We then took him to pay a courtesy call on the Emir of Tafki, HRH Ali Toron Giwa III. The emir welcomed us and spoke briefly, appealing for peace during the campaigns. I then stood up, introduced our presidential candidate and asked him to deliver a speech. To my surprise the man just knelt down in front of the emir and was saying, “Rankai dade! Rankai dade! Please emir, tell your people to vote for me. I am your son and since I cannot reach all the people of Tafki Emirate, please help me and tell them that I am a good man and they should vote for me. In all my life as a businessman I never cheated anybody! Please sir, help me to tell them.” In fact, the Shamakin Tafki cut him short and said, “The emir is not anybody’s messenger!”
From the emir’s palace we went to Shamuwa Square for the rally. I spent a lot of money to organise that rally because I had to pay for use of the square, make banners and billboards, pay the DPO to provide security, hire buses to ferry in our supporters from every local government etc. We drove with him into the square in a long motorcade with singers and dancers leading the way. We also hired 100 commercial motorcyclists and they rode roughly along major streets of Birnin Tafki, causing traffic jam. This is necessary in a campaign because if you don’t cause traffic jam, people will say you are not popular in that state.
When it was the turn of our presidential candidate to speak, he took the microphone and shouted, “SIP!” Then our supporters shouted back with our party’s slogan, “Tuwo da miya!” “SIP!” “Tuwo da miya!” After he finished shouting the slogan I was expecting him to say something meaningful but our presidential candidate just said, “May Allah bring more food and more soup! May Allah add magi and Knorr to our soup! May Allah shower meat into our soup! May Allah put beef, chicken, cow meat, bush meat, fish, snail and crayfish in our soup! May Allah make us to stumble across a chicken’s breast bone during the last scoop of the soup!” After he finished he turned to me and said, “Please let us leave this place and go and eat. I am very hungry.” The man forgot to shut the mike when he was saying it and the whole stadium heard what he said.
In fact I was very happy when he was leaving with his small entourage the following day. Together with party officers and my top campaign aides we escorted him out of town. As we were saying goodbye the man drew me aside and said, “Alhaji, give us some money to buy fuel from the black market. We are koboless as you see us here.”