Of the people, by the people
Photo: David Rotimi
Soon it shall be 2023. New political parties will register with INEC. Most of them will make youths and women their presidential candidates. Former governors will buy nomination forms and presidential tickets for their preferred candidates. Those who want their candidates to win will buy tickets in APC or PDP. Their Excellencies Musa and Adamu will buy presidential tickets under the APC. Their Excellencies John and Obi will buy presidential tickets under the PDP.
Aspirants will start visiting former heads of state. The former heads of state will swear the visits are personal, not political in any way. BBC will interview the aspirants. The aspirants will cry during the interviews, for the pain the people are going through. They will regurgitate memorized statistics on poverty and mortality rate. The people will forgive them their previous mistakes of not giving them water and good healthcare systems. They will agree that because of their problems, the aspirant couldn’t sleep all night.
The aspirants will invite the young people who followed their convoys in the last election. They will tell them that they are the leaders and the future of Nigeria. They will create political organizations for them: Coalition of South-South CPA Youths or DPP Youths Network for Change North Central. The young people will add Comrade to their names on their Facebook profile. But they will spell it as ‘Comr.’ because Facebook does not recognize titles. They will be interviewed on NTA Good Morning Nigeria Show. Daily News, The Country, and The Fact newspapers will feature them. New sets of women leaders will be appointed in communities. The youths and women will position themselves as coordinators of the new organizations. They will post the pictures they took with the governor at his office when they paid him a courtesy visit.
PDP aspirants will decamp to APC. APC leadership will welcome them with a grand dinner at the Presidential Villa. APC aspirants deprived of vying for any position will decamp to PDP. PDP leadership will publish an article the next day and expose how those who left their party siphoned funds before defecting. Division will arise in APC. Some of the members will call themselves new APC. The non-defecting members will insult the new APC members in interviews but will not call them by their real names. The new members will threaten their old friends. Obasanjo will write an open letter to the ruling party. He will blame them for Nigeria’s problems. He will describe how their candidate’s incompetency ruins Nigeria.
Honourables’ Aliyu and Musa will visit Sheikh Hamza and Sheikh Ibrahim at night. They will have closed-door meetings with them at their residences. The Sheikhs will tell their followers they rejected any money offered during these visits. The followers will bow their heads and worship them; they will sit with folded legs and call the Sheikhs big names, including Saint. Two weeks later, the Honourables will send their personal assistants to pick up the Sheikhs in black Highlander Jeep, taking them back at midnight. The Sheikhs will set aside their Friday sermons and lecture God’s followers on the importance of democracy to Islamic growth and prosperity. They will ask them to vote for Honourables Aliyu and Musa. They will tell them that not voting for them is like disobeying Allah. They will tell their followers that other parties have conspired with America to legalize homosexuality in Nigeria. The followers will groan. They will hate other parties and their aspirants. God Forbid! They will never allow such a shameful thing to happen before their eyes.
Photo: Omotayo Tajudeen
Honourables Emeka and Desmond will visit Pastor Godwin and Pastor Mathew on a Monday when everyone is at work. They will pay, in one great sum, the tithes of a lifetime into the pastors’ personal accounts. They will tell them that their parties’ mandate is for the good of Christians. They will tell the pastors that apart from them and their policies, anything else is an attempt to Islamize Nigeria. The pastors will be sponsored to Jerusalem for pilgrimage to pray against enemies of Christianity. After their pilgrimages, the pastors will gather their subjects after Sunday service. They will switch off the mic and whisper to them not to vote for the others. They will tell them that the other parties have conspired with Saudi Arabia to make Nigeria a Shari’a state. God Forbid! They will never accept any party attempting to stop them from going to their churches.
The Chukwuemekas will converge for a Conference in Anambra. They will swear that Nigeria will be turned upside down if they aren’t given the opportunity to lead the country this time. The leadership of the conference will say the Musas are Nigeria’s biggest problem because of their underdevelopment. They will say everyone in the north is illiterate and hungry for power. The leadership will wail. They will remind their members how the Musas ostracize them from the political space. They will remind them that they are casualties of Biafra. Some will say yes to secession. Some will say no to secession. Those who say no to secession will be called chickens. They will conclude the conference without nominating a candidate for the presidency. Nnamdi Kanu will release a new video on YouTube the next day. He will laugh at them and call Nigeria a zoo. They will hail him for calling them animals.
The Musas will convene a stakeholder’s meeting in Kano. They will call everyone on board. They will tell themselves how dangerous the Chukwuemekas are. They will swear to them that if Musas allow any Chukwuemeka to rule the country, they will die of hunger like their parents did. The Bulamas and Mai Anguwas will tell their subjects to marry more wives and multiply their numbers. They will tell them it is a Hadith from the beloved prophet. They will forbid their people from voting for anyone that is not Musa. The subjects will take the news to their four wives. Their wives will tell their neighbours. The neighbours will tell their children, and the children will write ‘Sai Musa’ on every wall they see on every street.
The Femis will rally their people from all over the country. They will have a meeting in Ibadan, and no one will know about the meeting. Their journalists will refuse to make public what went on in the meeting. The Obas will say Ile-Ife is the origin of humanity. That they were Femis first before the white men brought Christianity and the Arabs brought Islam. They will assign from amongst them a fireman who will be their political jagaban. The Femis leadership will tell some of their subjects to be with the ruling party and others to stay with the opposition party. They will say whoever fails is a win, whoever wins is a win.
Members of the House of Representatives, or Honourables, will visit their constituencies. They will organize meetings for all the young people on the streets who had promised to stone their Jeeps whenever they drive into the communities. The young people will come out of the meetings with brand new Volkswagen Golf Wagons. These House of Rep members will settle their disputes with the local government chairmen. The local government chairmen will accept them and launder their names before their subjects. They will gather the district heads and have meetings at the local government secretariat. Each district head and ward chairmen will come out of the meeting with a brown envelope. They will promise votes to the House of Rep members who will, in turn, dig new boreholes in their constituencies. They will repaint the old community primary schools and invite the state governors to commission them. Pencils and exercise books with their faces on them will be given to school pupils. Pictures will be taken to be printed in their one-year-in-office magazines. Then the House of Rep man or woman will fly back to Abuja.
Bags of rice and ankara prints will never remain the same again. Their Excellencies John and Obi will have their heads and that of their deputies printed on ankara. Their Excellencies Musa and Adamu will order trucks of rice. They will have their party logo printed on the sacks of rice. Both will go back to their communities and distribute these goods to the people. NTA will cover the charity and describe the successful distribution. An 80-year-old woman will be interviewed during the program. She will cry and say she has never seen such generous politicians. The aspirant will shake her hands. Their pictures will be taken. The next day, newspapers will publish the picture on their front pages with titles like ‘I Have Never Seen A Politician As Generous As This’ – 80-year-old woman after receiving relief materials from governorship aspirant.
“They will conclude the conference without nominating a candidate for the presidency. Nnamdi Kanu will release a new video on YouTube the next day. He will laugh at them and call Nigeria a zoo. They will hail him for calling them animals.”
The Johns will hang up their posters on the streets in the morning. Musas will post theirs over Johns’s the next day. Johns will send boys to bring down Musas’s posters. The boys will burn billboards and some nearby shops. Musas will announce a 24-hour curfew in the state. The next day the governor will ban the hanging up of posters on the street. Johns’s party chairmen will organize a press conference with their lawyers and talk about the right to campaign. Musas will be granted interviews on NTA Spotlight Show. The good works they did in the past will be shown in a video documentary. Johns will switch from press conferences to TV and be featured on Station TV. Musas will be featured on TBC News. Johns will appear in The Country and Sahelian Reporters. Musas will appear in Daily Truth and The Fact. The other new political parties will only be able to promote their campaign by sponsoring Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram ads because their campaigns aren’t funded. The aspirants from the newly created political parties will wait for John or Musa to request that they relinquish their ambitions with a cheque.
Northern musicians will create a group. They will sing songs for the Musas. The governors and senators from their states will sponsor them. They will launch videos of the songs and distribute them widely for free. Radio stations will be paid to play the songs. After the songs are aired, the governors from Johns’ parties will ask NBC to sanction the radio stations. The Musas will pay the fine. Johns will sponsor Nollywood actors to create a ‘Your Vote Is Your Right’ awareness video. The video will be created by the finest video editors, and towards the end of the video will be the image of a thumb. It will illustrate the thumb voting John. The party’s logo will be colourful like a flower.
Some Musas will decamp to John’s party again, and some Johns will move to Musa’s. The new Musa’s members will tell their new family how John’s party has ruined Nigeria’s economy for a decade. The new John’s party members will tell their new family how corrupt Musa’s party is. Musa’s party will blame John’s party for squandering Nigeria’s wealth for years. John’s party will blame Musa’s party for breaking people’s trust. Both parties will insult themselves in public. Bulama will draw a caricature of opposing politicians in Daily Trust. The news of their fight will trend on Twitter. Wole Soyinka will describe the fight as mognomatous. Linda Ikeji will publish the news on her blog. Other young bloggers will copy her post and paste it on their blogs. Nigerians in the diaspora will say they are from Africa when they are asked about their country.
John’s party will announce their presidential candidate. They will promise Nigerians that he is the best for them. The party’s leadership will take him to former heads of state for blessings. The head of state will raise the party’s candidate hands for Nigerians to see his anointed candidate, and a picture of them will be taken. Musas’ party will announce their presidential candidate too. They will tell Nigerians that the candidate is for the poor. The candidate will say they are ready to resign if they can’t fix the country after six months in office. The poor will cry with them. They will thank God for sending them a saviour. The saviour will promise to sweep away hunger.
Political analysts, writers, professors and journalists will write columns in newspapers. They will exhume the careers of the presidential candidates and bring out things hidden—how these candidates have wounded the country in the past. Party leadership will call it made up stories aimed at vilifying good names which are hard to build. Dangote and Otedola will not announce the candidate they support. They will not announce the party they belong to. They will attend meetings with all candidates and wish them success. They will refuse to take pictures with any of the candidates after the meetings. They will also not say that their primary interest is their businesses and not any party. Before the election, they will fly out of the country.
The INEC chairman will postpone the election one week before it begins. Voters will be frustrated and swear to never vote again. John’s party will call it a rigging strategy. On election day, the parties’ leaderships will gather agents in Government Day Secondary School. They will give them thirty thousand naira each to share with their people. The agents from the political parties will bribe the uniform men at the polling unit. They will also bribe the INEC officials. Everyone will act as if they are honest. They will convince themselves that the money they were bribed with is their share of the national cake.
In the Musas region, thugs will stand in front of ballot boxes. They will monitor voters and their votes. They will threaten to deal with anyone who votes Johns. Those who vote for Musas will be given new five hundred naira notes and bottles of Coke. In John’s region, thugs will snatch ballot boxes. They will beat up uniformed men and run to uncompleted buildings. They will thumb-print Johns ad nauseam. The intellectuals and the rich will refuse to go out to vote. They will sit in their living rooms and wait for the announcement of results. The woman frying Akara on the street will sleep that day. She will say that her vote won’t make any change.
All ballot boxes will be sent to the election body on election night. Results of all states will be announced except Lagos, Kano, Imo and Rivers. Before their announcement, John’s party members will start celebrating. Musa’s party members will burn tires on the streets. The results will be announced the next day. Musas will win the election. John’s party members will burn tires on the streets too. The party leadership will go to court to challenge the result. Six months later, the court will dismiss the case. John’s party leadership will organize a press conference. They will tell the world how Nigeria’s judicial system is corrupt. Later, members from John’s party will decamp to Musa’s party. They will be appointed ministers and directors of government agencies. The candidates from the other newly registered political parties will be appointed special advisers. They will all have a dinner to welcome new members and appointees. They will congratulate themselves. They will laugh at their jokes, and NTA will show the event live.
And soon, 2027 shall come, too. New political parties will register with INEC and assign youth and women as their candidates. The old parties will change their names to new ones. And the beat goes on.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sa'id Sa'ad is a Nigerian writer from Maiduguri. He is the Peace Panel Short Story Prize Winner 2018. His work has appeared in Bookends Review, Kalahari Review, Ibua Journal, and elsewhere. He spends his days smiling and writing. In between, he sips tea and travels.