In Tafki State there are 14 local governments and each one of them has ten wards. We set up a task force in each of the 140 wards to try to get our supporters elected as delegates to the state congress that will elect the governorship candidate. As my campaign team’s chairman Alhaji Gohe reminded us, the ward congresses are the make or mar. If we fail to get our supporters elected as delegates to the state congress then we have no hope of winning the nomination.
In fact, the thing was very costly. The task force in each ward brought a budget which was pruned by Alhaji Gohe and Maikahon Karo. It included money to transport our supporters to ward congress venues as well as money to provide food and drinks at the venue so that hunger and thirst will not drive our supporters away before the cast their vote. We also budgeted money for the policemen, “transport money” for the officers sent from the state secretariat to conduct the congresses, as well as money for “operations” by our Youth and Women wings.
In my own ward, Kwangiri Ward of Gebe Local Government where I stood for election as a delegate, I saw the kind of things that happened. Throughout the night before the congress our task force people were going round and knocking at the doors of registered party members, giving them sugar, salt and soap and reminding them to be at the congress venue as early as possible. While they were going round they met people from Goshin Bauna’s campaign. Goshin Bauna sent his people to ensure that I am defeated in my own ward. I did not mind because my campaign team also sent a task force to try to ensure that Goshin Bauna is defeated in his own Tsakuwa Ward of Tsamiya Local Government.
In fact, the leader of my Youth Wing, Maitawaye had set up special roving squads for the ward congresses. At around 3am in the morning they saw Goshin Bauna’s people station a Hiace bus not far from the venue of the congress in my ward. They stormed the bus and found that it was full of sachets of Peak milk, Indomie cartons, candles and matchsticks. Each one of them had Goshin Bauna’s picture printed on it. My boys seized all the things and overturned the bus.
I got to the congress venue as early as 8am. My supporters were there in hundreds, singing and dancing but the officials to conduct the congress were nowhere to be found. We waited and waited. They sent a message that their vehicle had a flat tyre on their way to Gebe and that they could not find a vulcaniser to patch it. There was a vulcaniser among my supporters so he quickly packed his tools and we drove him towards Birnin Tafki in a campaign car. They went to the place where the officials said they had a flat tyre but they were nowhere to be found. They saw some Fulani herdsmen and asked them whether they saw any car with a flat tyre. The Fulani men said they had been grazing their cattle there since dawn but they did not see any car with a flat tyre.
So we became suspicious. Our Youth Wing sent search parties to look for them all over the local government. Finally someone brought a report that he saw them driving towards one uncompleted building near the river. Maitawaye himself led the team to storm the place. When they saw our Youth Wing members approaching, they jumped out of the window of the uncompleted building and fled in all directions. The chairman even left behind his cap, one red dara that he always wears. Maitawaye and his boys collected all the papers they left behind. We saw that they were already entering results for the ward delegate “election” while we were sitting in the sun waiting for them.
So we decided to pay them back in their own coins. Since our boys had seized the result sheets, we sat down at the venue, filled them and returned our supporters as elected delegates. Our boys then went and captured the secretary of the team that was sent from the capital to conduct the ward congress. He was forced to sign the result sheet. The police sergeant sent by the DPO was called aside and properly settled, so he also signed the result sheet. He even sent a text message to the DPO saying “the ward congress was conducted in a peaceful and orderly manner without any violence.”
Later on, we began to hear reports from our agents that the Governor and the state party chairman Sallama Maikudi had rigged the ward congresses all over the state for Goshin Bauna. We heard that in Kunkuwa Local Government it was announced that the ward congresses would not hold that day in honour of a prominent local cleric who died, that they will hold the following day. Our supporters left for home, only to hear that Goshin Bauna’s supporters went back, reopened the venue and were holding the congress. So our supporters stormed the place and a free for all fight ensued. One of our men managed to grab the result sheet they had already filled and tore it to pieces.
In Kwazazzabo Local Government, which is the home local government of ex-minister Dokin Karfe, he went and got a court order stopping the ward congresses. Court bailiffs arrived at the party chairman’s house at dawn and slapped him with the court order, which the bailiffs said was granted ex-parte by a high court in Abuja. Imagine, an Abuja court stopping a ward election in Tafki State! But one lawyer saw the paper and he said it was fake, that it had no court seal on it. The DPO was called in and the “court bailiffs” took to their heels.
By the time we returned to Birnin Tafki and compiled reports from various local governments, we found that our men had won in many wards in Marmaro, Tudu, Gangare, Bulbuli, Mun Tsira and Gebe local governments. But two days later my legal adviser managed to see the final list of elected delegates that was about to be sent to national headquarters. All the names of our victorious delegates had been replaced by other strange names. As the state party secretary was going out with the list, Maitawaye and his boys stopped him at a roundabout, snatched his briefcase and brought out the list. Right there on the road, they sprinkled the list with kerosene and set it ablaze.
