Trouble at Tafki State Assembly

They were holding a racquet each but they were not playing; instead they were discussing intently in hushed tones. I complained to the man sitting next to me that those people have occupied the tennis lawn but were not playing. The man said, “Leave them! They are Honourable Members. They are trying to impeach the […]

They were holding a racquet each but they were not playing; instead they were discussing intently in hushed tones. I complained to the man sitting next to me that those people have occupied the tennis lawn but were not playing. The man said, “Leave them! They are Honourable Members. They are trying to impeach the Speaker.” I wondered how he knew that, when he was sitting with me at a table and sipping cold mango juice.
What the man said excited me, so I left the club soon afterwards and headed for home. When I got there, Maikahon Karo was just parking the Honda End of Discussion car that I recently gave him. Trust Maikaho, he handed over his old Golf car to the young thugs that follow him around. He got that car during the Governor’s re-election campaign three years ago. Now he moves around in the End of Discussion while the boys fill up the Golf and follow him around. Wherever Maikaho stopped they will also stop, come out and mill around the two cars.
We entered the house together and before we even sat down Maikaho said, “A golden opportunity has landed for us. There is trouble at the State Assembly. The speaker is about to be impeached. We must cash in on it and achieve our own political aims.” I asked him what the members’ grievances were and he said, “No one knows. Before I came here I tried to find out. They have split into many different groups and each group is saying a different thing. They are however united on one thing, that the speaker and the other principal officers must go.” That evening we had a strategy meeting and we identified different factions of the members. Our first task was to find out what their grievances were, so we could now work out how to harness them and channel them to our political advantage.
By the time we met the following day, my campaign aides had met with leaders of the four rebel groups and they reported back what they heard. Twenty two of the Assembly’s 27 members were in rebellion, although for different reasons. All four groups mentioned some unpaid allowances and the non-implementation of an agreement they reached with the Governor to be paid wardrobe, newspaper, visitors’ entertainment, crowd security and personal hazard allowances. Alhaji Gohe met with one group led by the member from Gudu. They said the Speaker must be removed because he is arrogant, that he does not even answer members’ phone calls, that he does not attend social occasions at the houses of members, that he refused to approve travel allowances for some committees, and that he did not complain when the Governor stood up at public functions and recognised commissioners before he recognised House members.
Maikahon Karo met with a second group led by the member from Gangare. Their own grouse was different. They are demanding for automatic return tickets for all the members. They said the Speaker joined the Governor, the party chairman and Goshin Bauna to make 2015 plans for themselves but they left the House members in the cold. They said to add salt to injury, the Speaker told them that as statutory delegates to the state party congress, they are expected to endorse the governorship aspirant favoured by the Governor.
 When Tsinin Kusa met with the third group, it was led by the member from Idon Ruwa who said the speaker disgraced him by paying a surprise visit to his constituency office. He found a woman sitting there and asked her who she was; she said she was the sister to the member’s wife and had been hired as the Legislative Assistant. The speaker went and mentioned it at a meeting of Principal Officers that some members engage the relatives of their wives in their constituency offices.
Next, our women leader Yar’guguwa met with the two female members of the House. Their own grouse against the speaker was different. One of them said the speaker caused trouble for her at home when she went with a committee on oversight visit. That when her husband accidentally met the speaker on the road and said his wife was away with a committee, the speaker said it is not true, that the committee members did not go anywhere because he did not approve the money they requested. The other female member’s grouse was that she took her nanny into the Assembly chamber to hold her infant child during plenary but the speaker directed the Sergeant-at-Arms to drive out the nanny because the child was crying.
We collated all these information, then we linked up with the deputy governor, the minister and the senator for Tafki South who are all aggrieved. A secret meeting was held at my guest house late at night where we agreed to contribute money, which we will use to fuel the agitation against the speaker. We will also help the members to steal some vouchers from the accounts section which will show that the speaker was living lavishly even though he refused to approve monies requested by committees for their oversight tours. We also reached a decision that when the speaker is impeached, we will promote the member from Tsamiya Local Government as his replacement. Even though that member did adult education classes, got his Grade Three teachers’ certificate by distance learning and can hardly speak English, we want him there so that when it is time for zoning, we will block Goshin Bauna from becoming the governorship candidate.
For three days we worked feverishly and implemented our plan. When the Assembly finally convened in the morning, the Majority Leader tried to play a fast one. He moved for an adjournment in honour of the traders who lost their shops to a fire at Mun Tsira market the day before. A rebel MP quickly moved a counter motion. When it became clear that the rebel motion would carry the day, the member from Marmaro, who is a close friend of the Majority Leader, suddenly grabbed the mace, jumped out of the window and disappeared in the thick garden behind the Assembly complex. No one followed him because the garden is so thick with flowers and shrubs that the members call it Sambisa.