I am not sure you know what that means, Mrs Mathews. The word ‘settle.’ Make no mistakes, even if you were an election observer, though you are an American, our Chairman will attempt to settle you. And the state governor too, if you happen to be a judge among the tribunal members set up to try election petitions, for instance. I was with Chairman Popo the day he and his Ward Councilors went with the state governor to hear the verdict of the tribunal which heard the petition filed by the opposition party candidate after the last governorship election. Cases challenging election of sitting governors are rampant here, fa. Our governor spent two years in power yet judgment on the suit challenging his election was not delivered. It was another opportunity for me to make money the day we went to hear that judgment. Chairman Popo gave me money for mobilization of youth. I chartered a bus that had six seats, filled it with eight people, and claimed money for sixty seven people. No one knew who was who in the large crowd of supporters that gathered in front of the building where the election tribunal sat in the course of the two years it spent hearing the petition.
You needed to hear what I heard that day, Mrs Mathews. My boys and I sang and danced in expectation of victory for the governor. Of course, we knew the governor would win. It was a simple thing, the matter of ensuring victory with an election tribunal. Every politician here knows that the important thing is to get sworn into office first, and then let the opposition prove its case beyond doubt to a tribunal, a thing that is never as easy as it sounds. And in situations where the case seems to be heading in the unexpected direction, the politician in power applies the shock absorbers.
“Did the opposition get any evidence from your Local council area?” I heard a man said to another when I left my boys briefly, and moved around in the crowd in the premises where the tribunal had its sittings.
“Where dem go get am? When I no be small pikin for this business. You no say na me and Council chairman supervise proceedings that day. I have had all the ballot papers cleared. You no weting we do? We set the vehicle wey the election people use in carrying the election things bring on fire at Mile 2. You no say accident too dey happen for that place. So after we declared the results in favour of the governor in our local council area, I told the election official to push the vehicle down the slope near the bridge and set it on fire with the ballot boxes and other materials in it.
“So there is nothing to prove that there was rigging.”
“Nating, kachakacha. When the judges ordered the election authority to bring the ballot papers, They were told that everything had been burnt at the scene of the accident. How about your local council area, did they have any evidence?”
“They do. Fifteen thousand votes cast in favour of the governor, which the opposition has proved to be fraudulent, have been nullified by the tribunal.”
“That one no mean anyting. The case don settle. Na since last week we don know how the judgment go be.”
“Ehn, ehn.”
‘I tell you, the governor don see dem.”
“He done see who?”
“Those wey dey talk for inside there.”
I turned in the direction of the building which housed the tribunal, to which the man had pointed a finger. The police had problems keeping the crowd away from the door. I heard the judge reading the tribunal’s verdict from the radio of a car in which the driver sat behind the steering, sleeping. The judge had been at it for the last two hours.
“…In Oriire local government council area, the petitioner submitted that of the fifty-four thousand, six hundred and twenty two votes cast, forty-four thousand were fake, having been thumb-printed by touts recruited by the defendant. This tribunal is of the view that the petitioner did not prove his case beyond reasonable doubts. Therefore, the tribunal has decided that the evidence provided cannot not justify the petitioner’s prayer that the result from Oriire Council Area be cancelled. In Ifedore local government council area, the petitioner claims that, of the One hundred and eighty-six thousand, four hundred and fifty-four votes cast…”
From the way he reeled our figures, I had wondered if the judge would finish reading his judgment in five hours. He didn’t; he spent thirty five minutes more. I don’t need to tell you who won at the tribunal that day, Mrs Mathews, but I have to tell you about the coming election. Did I mention that chairmen of local council areas have their own national association, ALGC, and that they leave their councils to attend meetings in the nation’s capital city much of the time? Chairman Popo was the chairman of the state chapter of ALGC. Politicians have begun to jostle for new offices, as usual, as the election drew closer. Have I told you the governor of our state is from our senatorial district? He is, and something happened on the issue of who is become the senatorial candidate for our district. Chairman Popo’s called a meeting of political stakeholders in our senatorial district two months ago. I was one of the invitees. I am a big man, fa, Mrs Mathews. I wanted to surprise you, that’s why I kept that angle away from you all along. You see, after I delivered the votes to Chairman Popo for his second term in office, he realized I am a political asset, so he did not only draw me closer to himself, he has been consulting me on every matter that has to do youth and voting. He has appointed me leader of the youth wing of the party in the whole of our local council area. Imagine, me, a leader at the level of local government council. Uhmn, I am on my way to the top, you can sure of that, Ma. So I attended this meeting. It was a high-powered meeting, consisting of just the inner caucus. We were six in all, and we were midway into it when one of the policemen around Chairman Popo’s house pushed the door open.
“His Excellency don come, sir,” he said and withdrew.
“Ehn, a minute, please, I want to go and receive His Excellency, the state governor.”
He returned, with the state governor behind him. The governor looked like any other man to me at the moment. Men in power can be ordinary at times, Mrs Mathews, I am telling you. They can be plain ordinary without the …em…em, yes, I remember now, without the paraphernalia of power, which includes the FBI-feigning security operatives around them, and the sirens that do, wao wao wao, wao wao wao! You won’t understand me, Ma, because, in your country, you only hear sirens when vehicles on special duties race across town. Here the sirens are part of the office and power of our politicians; sirens tell when a big man is around. Sometimes, I wonder if your president, I mean the American president, is as powerful as Chairman Popo, not to mention our state governors. I saw a convoy of cars that had your president traveling on the highway in an American city he visited days back. There was no siren. Your president was driven without siren, Mrs Mathews! That is a security risk, fa! Your security men are putting your president’s life in serious danger, I am telling you. Here, even with sirens, some common people still constitute themselves into obstacles in the path of the speeding convoy of high state officials. And you never can tell who may be loitering around with a gun on our crowded streets. Days back, a governor’s security operatives beat up a man, took him to a police station, stripped him naked, and locked him up for days, all because he failed to veer off the road on time for the governor’s convoy to pass. The victim turned out to be a priest, and the governor has since apologized to member of his church, claiming he was not aware of the excesses of the security operatives around him.
But don’t take what that governor said seriously, Mrs Mathews. And that ‘s because here, any police officer who fails to blow siren in front of a politician or ruthlessly deal with anyone who stands in his path does not know his job; that is one. Two, such an inefficient police officer puts the life of the politician at risk. And three, he belittles the person of the politician. That officer will lose his job, I mean he will be posted away from attending to the politician. Do you know that securing the life of a politician is the best assignment a security operative can get here? I understand that officers bribe their superiors to be assigned to the presidency, Senators, State Governors, Commissioners and Council Chairmen, because there is largesse for the boys, apart from salaries. That’s how the officers survive, you know. And it pays better that when they put up check-points on the road to collect rumpled currency notes. I am serious, fa, Mrs Mathews. Sebi, I saw it when a corporal threw a naira note back at a commercial driver a few days ago, causing the driver for giving him twenty naira instead of the fifty naira he demanded.
By the way, Mrs Mathews, it is not just by wearing flowing agbada or babanriga, that makes our people to respect a man here. How loud his siren sounds is equally important. By looking at the number of cars in a convoy and how loud the sirens are, a pepper seller beside the road will tell you if it is the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives that is passing by or the President and Commander-in-Chief. And that reminds me of one other problem I have with your president. He wears two piece suits just like any ordinary American. How can a leader appear important when his cloth is just like that of any other person? He needs to come out in flowing robes, honest. The royalties of Britain shock me. They are no different from politicians in America. Last year, the Queen came to declare open a commonwealth conference here. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her on TV. Her Majesty, the Queen, in simple skirt and blouse, Mrs Mathews! You Americans and Britons don’t know how to make your leaders look important, I am telling you. If you see a chief here, especially chiefs from certain parts of our country, you will know by the beads - some the size of my head - that they put on their necks, and the heavy satin or damask cloths they use in making their garments. I learned that some of these satin and damask materials are designed and used as window blind, covers for cushion chairs, and as table covers in your country.