Six more weeks of campaign

Haba! Which kind of suffering is this one? Since last year at least when we started this campaign in full swing I have not slept properly on my bed. Every time meeting, meeting, meeting. Then travelling, travelling, travelling. Today we are in this town; tomorrow we are in that town. Dust, smoke, sweat, everything! I […]

Haba! Which kind of suffering is this one? Since last year at least when we started this campaign in full swing I have not slept properly on my bed. Every time meeting, meeting, meeting. Then travelling, travelling, travelling. Today we are in this town; tomorrow we are in that town. Dust, smoke, sweat, everything! I was very happy when I looked at the calendar last week and saw that there were only three weeks remaining before the governorship election. And then suddenly you have this postponement of a thing.
They said they are postponing it because the military said they are not ready to provide security. Do they know how costly this postponement is going to be for candidates like me? Do they think it is a small thing to just postpone election? Will they give us the money for this additional cost? Even the food that I provide for my campaign managers and supporters, is it a small thing? When my wives open a bag of rice today, by tomorrow it is finished! Big pots of rice are always on the fire, as if my house is a school cafeteria. As they bring one pot down from the fire, another one is going up. Supporters are coming in and out of the house from dawn until midnight and anyone who comes will just say, “Please bring rice! Let me bellyful before we go out for this rally!”
The vehicles that are following me around, is it a small thing? All my personal vehicles have been deployed into this campaign. I had to buy small cars for all my key campaign staff, at least ten of them. In addition I bought several buses which our youth and women wings fill with their members everyday to follow me around. Even these are not enough when we are going for a rally so we have to hire many more buses. Supporters will just troop in and enter the vehicles. No matter the number of vehicles you provide, they will not be enough because people troop in from the motor park, from the market, everywhere! Last time I even saw some Fulani herdsmen, they left their cattle in the hands of young boys and they scrambled into the campaign vehicles. Everyday I have to bring out money because everyone who enters the campaign vehicles must be given money for his lunch. And then we must still buy food, pure water, kola nut, cigarettes. One day I saw Tsinin Kusa trying to hide a small sack from me. I said what is it? He said, “It is just to encourage our boys” but refused to say what it is. I later found out that it is wee wee.
What are we even going to do with these six weeks that they have now added to the campaign? I have already held rallies in 12 of the fourteen local governments in Tafki State. The only ones remaining were Kunkuwa and Gangare local governments, and then a grand rally in the state capital Birnin Tafki to round off the campaign. That’s all! But now there is this extension, we must sit down and plan what to do. Alhaji Gohe said we should start going round the local governments again but I don’t want to do that. It is too costly and it is energy sapping, to be climbing the podium again in the middle of all that singing and dancing, with dust and smoke and sweating people everywhere.
What will I even say again? I have even lost count of the number of promises I have been making during these rallies. Sometimes when you arrive in a local government you don’t even know what to say before you climb the podium. My friend who came from Abuja advised me to appoint two more assistants. One of them, his duty is to liaise with party leaders in any local government that we are about to visit, find out what are the important issues in that local government and brief me on what to say. But the boy is so lazy, he will just come up to me with a piece of paper and say “promise them water, promise them a hospital, promise them fertiliser.” That is why when I am about to speak the leader of our women’s wing Hajiya Dela Yar’guguwa will jump onto the stage and begin singing and dancing and take away much of the time, because she knows that I am running out of things to say.
Even the other assistant I appointed, his work is to keep a record of the promises I make at every stop. My friend warned me that politicians tend to forget that they made a promise but the people of the village will never forget. When I become the governor I will just be going to Economic Council meeting today, Council of State meeting tomorrow, party caucus meeting the day after, book launch, opening ceremony, convocation, turbanning, condolences, foreign trip, pilgrimage etc. You will finish your going round and the village people will be sitting there patiently, saying Governor promised us a borehole so that our wives will not be going out to the stream at dawn to fetch water, and we are waiting for him to fulfil the promise. And you have forgotten, just going from Hilton Hotel to Nicon Luxury to International Conference Centre in Abuja. That is why I need an assistant to keep a record of the promises I made. Yesterday when he showed me the list, I nearly screamed because I have made nearly 1,000 promises already. How can I fulfil all of them in four years with these plummeting oil prices?
Anyway, as Maikaho Karo used to say, let us concentrate on winning the election for now and worry about the promises later. He said I should not shy away from making any promise that will win votes for us. I said, “Maikaho, how can I make a promise that I will come to regret later?” and he said, “The only regret you will have is if you don’t win the election. All the other governors who made promises during the campaign and did not fulfil them, what happened to them? Go ahead and promise anything that people like. When we enter the Government House we will find a way to handle that. You know our people are very patient. If you don’t fulfil a promise they will say that God did not destine it that the promise will be kept.”