Musings of a victorious candidate  

Tell them I am coming! Haba! You mean I cannot get some rest, even after I have been declared the winner of this primary election and our party’s governorship candidate? I cannot even remember the last time I lay down on my bed and slept for more than an hour. Visitors, visitors, day and night.

Every time it is people, people, people. These ones will come; even before they go, another set of people will come; soon followed by another set. One group will say, we are the party elders, and at the caucus meeting tomorrow we will stand firmly and ensure that you are adopted as the consensus candidate. Another group will say, ehn, we are the grassroots party leaders, we are here to pledge our support, to reaffirm our loyalty to you, to assure you that we are working day and night to ensure your victory in the primary election, that we have been knocking at doors, we have mobilised all our family members, our relatives, our neighbours, even our customers in the market, our tenants and all our in-laws. All of us will turn out and vote for you in the direct primaries.

Another group will come and say, we are the top clerics in this state. We have been praying for you, day and night, and surely God will answer our prayers. Even during the last election, we were the ones who prayed for His Excellency and that was how he was elected by a landslide vote. And then the marabouts will come and say, Your Excellency, don’t worry. We have tied the hands of His Excellency the Governor and we have blinded the eyes of the Returning Officer. You will be adopted by consensus and even if it is direct primaries, the Returning Officer must return you, otherwise his feet will be on fire and his hands will be trembling. All we need are two fat cows, four white rams, five black goats and ten red hens, and then leave the rest to us.

Even after I was declared the winner, a large team of party elders came and said, ‘It was not even our wish that it came to direct primaries. We thought it had all ended when His Excellency the Governor anointed you as his chosen successor. We were very happy with that, but then, these two other people who do not know God, refused to accept the consensus arrangement and threatened to go to court, which was why the party decided to do direct primaries. Anyway, God’s wish is fulfilled and you have won the primary, but we must come to your house every day in order to ensure that our enemies do not succeed in subverting your victory. We know they are planning many devilish things. Lawyers, clerics and marabouts are coming in and out of their houses, so we must remain vigilant until the day you win the main election and you are sworn in.’ That is what I hear every day, from so-called supporters.

Pressure from party elders, youth leaders, women leaders, clerics and marabouts is even manageable. Godfathers are the bigger problem. They are already bringing hefty bills; “In my local government, I had to settle all the clerics, the traditional rulers, the DPO and his men, and then on the day of the direct primaries I hired all the buses in my local government, fifty of them, and they carried your supporters to the voting areas and took them back home. I commissioned ten food sellers to bring food to the voting centers, since it lasted the whole day. Plus the women who made drinks and brought sachet water. And of course there were the town toughs that I deployed to guard the voting centers, because we had information that your opponents will do something hanky panky. I gave them money to buy sticks and cutlasses. And I had to add money to the DPO and his men to look the other way because the law said no one should approach the voting center with a weapon. So, here is the total bill.”

As soon as I was declared winner, before I even reached home, the Returning Officer caught up with me in the street, together with other members of the Electoral Panel. He said, “All of us came from outside this state. The party national secretariat called us at short notice and said we must come here and conduct the direct primary. They didn’t even give us transport fare; we all paid our way to get here. Now we are trying to get back home, and we need money to pay for air fares, and you know because of the jet fuel problem, the airlines have increased one-hour flight’s fare to N300,000. Also, when you are sworn in next year as the governor, please don’t forget us, because we returned a lot of votes for you. In fact, we did Estimated Counting, just like NEPA does Estimated Billing. Here is the video. You see how we counted, 1, 2, 50, 100, 101, 102, 300, 350, 500… That’s how you got 304,000 votes in this direct primary.”

All this money people are demanding; it has nearly bankrupted me.  I sold one of my houses in the state capital for fifty million, and all that money finished just to settle the people who escorted me home after I was declared the winner. Can you imagine what the other operations cost? When His Excellency the Governor called me and said he was anointing me as his successor, I was very happy. I was expecting him to bring the money, but the first thing he said, my heart sank. He said, ‘I will give you every support. All my commissioners, special advisers, special assistants, state and federal legislators, party elders and officials at all levels, all the contractors, I will tell them to support you as the consensus candidate. But you should bring the money to close their mouths. I know you have money, as a big contractor, and you once headed a juicy federal agency. I will give you every support but you will bring the money. The little money I got, I must save it for my retirement because I still have many children for whom I will be paying school fees.”

Quite alright, some contractors and a few politicians donated money to me, but always with strings attached. One contractor who is building a new wing to the State Secretariat brought some money to me but said he will add when he applies for variation, which I should approve after I am sworn in next year. Another contractor came and said here are a few millions, but I want you to stop the Auditor General from querying the vouchers on my company’s contracts.  And then there are those who brought money and said they want to be appointed commissioners next year. One of them even chose his portfolio; he said he wants either Finance or Works, but that if I cannot give him those ones, he should be made the Accountant General.

Then the lawyers came. See them, walking into my house with their heavy coats and fat briefcases. They said, “Sir, you know many sections and sub-sections of the Electoral Act and INEC Guidelines were breached in this primary election, and your opponents have already brought some SANs from outside the state. We can also help you reach out to the judges; we must act fast because everything can be lost in the courts, after all your efforts on the political field.”

The one that annoyed them most was even the manager of one local radio station. He came and said, “Sir, we got all these papers, saying you reduced your age during your years of service, and also that the “Doctor” prefix in your name is an honourary doctorate, when the Federal Government has said honourary degree recipients should not affix Dr. to their names. I told my News Editor not to use the story yet until I see you.”

His Excellency the Governor himself stunned me when I went with a team of my supporters to thank him after I won the election. After we greeted him and prayed for him, he told everybody to go out, except me. He then handed to me a piece of paper containing three items. One, that when I take over next year, I will reimburse him N10 billion he spent in the election. Two, he will appoint the SSG, Head of Service, Commissioners of Finance, Works, Justice and Education in my Cabinet as well as the Accountant General and Chairman of SUBEB. And three, I will not allow any probe into contracts awarded during his tenure and will chase away EFCC, ICPC and Code of Conduct Bureau if they come asking any questions.

In fact, the paper I was writing about the policies and programs I will pursue when I am inaugurated next year, it fell from my pocket when I came out of His Excellency’s living room.