Like the maddening sound of algaita, it was a war cry. There were hunters, thugs, riff-raff and pickpockets. The air was thick with ringlets of smoke. The kind of smoke that made you lose your senses when inhaled. Thick accented kirari – in Hausa language – rose from different coarse voices. The praises were for their master, there before them in flesh and blood. He wore a shiny white flowing gown made of obviously expensive fabric, with a red feathered cap sitting on his head. When he rose to speak, the raucous crowd fell silent. Some with the presence of mind whipped out their smartphones to start filming. They wanted a record of having been in Alhaji’s presence, of being part of his army, his chosen sheep.
Some things in life are certain: death, taxes and some youths smoking weed in the open. There they believe themselves organised. Their primary responsibility whilst under the influence of all they are smoking and drinking is to “have all violence under control” in other words, to cause “HAVOC”.
The other reason for the gathering is to meet a political bigwig in the area. His name is not necessary but if I were to describe him, you would know him. For this purpose of this story, we will call him Alhaji. Fearless, impudent, arrogant, and far from being politically correct, the youth loved him for being “different” from other politicians. Well-known on social media for challenging the establishment, he would be meeting this segment of his constituents for the first time physically that day and all the psychoactive entertainment he provided was to prime them to receive the message he wanted to pass.
But the entertainment was taking its toll on the army. The entertainment was uniform, but the results varied. While some became quiet under its effect, others had become talkative. Some whispered as they spoke, while others spoke as though they were in a night club and had to be heard over the blaring of loudspeakers. Some scratched their bodies as though they had encountered devil beans whilst others lay languid under the dogonyaro tree. They all had bloodshot eyes though. This was exactly how Alhaji wanted them. Pliant, submissive but murderous. His dogs on a very short leash. He roused their spirits with strong words, words that could be characterised as hate speech, fanning populism and othering those he considered the opposition, blaming the “others” for every misfortune.
Someone started a chant. One of those popular ones about freedom fighters toppling the establishment. Others took up the chant and the chorus of voices rent the air. Soon enough they were jumping in the air and brandishing all sorts of locally made weapons which emerged mysteriously from flowing jalabiyas and undergarments. All the familiar faces: Adda, Gariyo, Fate-fate, Zabira, Kan-mai-uwa-dawabi, Shebur, Tsitaka, Faranka, Kamu-biyu, Birki kota, Takobi. They were all there. Ajali recognised them.
Alhaji had groomed this his army well. The pervading poverty and illiteracy made for a potent and combustible mix that Alhaji knew how to harness. He courted the youths in his locality and plied them with his philosophy as well as drugs and drink on the one hand. On the other, he offered the establishment as well as the opposition the opportunity to be their mouthpiece or enforcers. He took no sides and had no allegiance. It was election season and all his sowing was about to bear all sorts of harvest. He had come up with a scheme: he minted many of those and this time, with a bit of luck and orchestration, the dice had rolled to give him the number he wanted. He had been summoned by the powers that be. He went, and after the meeting, he had named a price which had been given him. The resulting plan was the real reason for the meeting. The time had come.
He saw it coming. Nobody else did.
His old rusty but trusty blades were on the dusty ground. He jumped from the fence he had been sitting on, picked up his blades and sprinted towards it. As he ran, the people milling on the street made way for him. They knew him and did not want to make him cross. The consequence could be quite painful. Ajali was a notorious member of a notorious gang that held sway in the area. He was an enforcer with a reputation for being implacable during gang wars. If a truce was to be negotiated, Ajali was not the one to broker it, and when one was reached, he was rarely happy about it. Fight to finish was usually his preference.
The street Ajali was running through was rowdy. Situated in a ghetto of overpopulated Kano, all sorts of people were milling about, engaged in all sorts of activities. People chatted, backslapped each other. Beggars stretched out their begging bowls for alms. Some people gathered around a woman selling fried bean cakes. The air was rank with the admixture of sweat and cheap perfume in equal proportion.
He reached the old woman standing by the dusty road in the nick of time and pushed her from the path of a wine-coloured van that was barrelling down the road towards her. The van had huge loudspeakers mounted behind it, playing loud music which prevented people from hearing the van itself. Some boys Ajali’s age were perched dangerously atop the vehicle, singing, drinking and smoking. They brandished weapons and swung them to the tune of their chants and shouted derogatory words as they sped past:
“Ba wani shege!”
“Sai ma rannar!”
“Dole ayi mu!”
The shaken old woman, blind and not understanding what had happened, tried to gather herself. She tied her nearly loosened wrapper and hijab and used her wrinkled hands to search for the stick which she used to tap-tap-tap the dusty ground and navigate her way around, as she begged for alms. People saw what Ajali did and were surprised. It seemed out of character for the gangbanger, but no one was going to tell him that. Everyone went about their business.
“Mama, are you alright?” he asked.
“Yes, I am alright. Is this my son?” the old woman asked.
“Yes mama. It is me.”
The boy’s voice conveyed his pain. The old woman reached for his face with her left hand. Knowing what she wanted to feel, he offered his right cheek to her. She felt the scar, obtained during a gang war, and was satisfied. “What happened my son? You give me a scare. Is everything alright?”
“Mama, everything is alright. Some boys nearly ran you over with a van. I was sitting on the fence. I saw them and rushed to help.”
“God bless you, my son. What would have happened? You know how the cost of local treatment now is. I would have to leave home. I would have to beg even harder for alms to feed my two grandchildren. The third one – your friend who refused to listen – is now dead. Isn’t life worthless if we don’t think of death?”
“It is, Mama.”
“I wonder what kind of generation you people belong to. We give birth to kids that do not heed advice.” The old woman was still searching for her stick. Ajali picked it up and handed it to her. “Ajali,” she called his name. “Do you still hang around with those gangs?”
He decides to tell her truth. “No. I don’t do that anymore.”
“That is good. That was what I wanted your friend to do, to leave the gangs and get a new life. He refused. He thought life was all about weed and dreams.”
“I’ll always remember him, Mama,” he said, but the old woman didn’t answer. With the tap-tap-tap of her stick on the dusty path, she resumed her cry for alms.
Somewhere in the south of the country, four news crew members of a popular news channel had been selected to cover an election in the north scheduled to hold in the coming fortnight. Hitherto, they had never set foot in the north. Their knowledge of the north, especially where the rescheduled elections would take place, was limited to what they had heard or read about: scorching sun, religious conflict, extremism, and, latest of it all. . . bandits’ enclave. It was shaping up to be their most tasking assignment yet.
The reporter who would have gone on the assignment had taken ill so he had to be substituted by a female intern. Simi was happy about this. She was going to cut her teeth on the assignment and was looking forward to it.
“Omo,” she told her chubby colleague, Rita, as they walked down the corridor, “When I reach Kano, ehn, the first thing I will look for is kilishi! Kano has the best of it I am told.”
Not interested in food, Rita chuckled and said, “I heard they have the finest gold necklaces, studs and earrings too.”
Their conversation ended as they arrived the conference room for their briefing. The large projector on the wall had the map of Kano on it with various polling stations and flashpoints highlighted.
“We have to be extremely cautious on this assignment and would have to work as a team with the other organisations on ground,” the team lead, Tosan, began. “The potential for violence is high but there will be international observers and security agencies we can report to if things get out of hand.”
“Will we still do the live interviews?” asked Rita.
“We would have to. That’s what makes our news agency different from other news agencies in Lagos,” Tosan replied.
“We will do interviews with voters at the polling units,” Tarsen the news researcher added.
“Because of the terrain we need to be mindful of those whom we want to interview and as soon as we see the person is not willing to grant us an interview, we let the person be,” Tosan reiterated.
“I hope there won’t be any violence,” Rita said, giving voice to the elephant in the room.
“I don’t think so. Kano is a stronghold of the ruling party. I strongly believe they will claim a landslide victory,“ Tosan offered as he projected a dotted map with predominantly purple on it, on the large screen. “These areas in purple were firm areas for the ruling party. It is not envisaged that there will be any surprises by the opposition there.”
“I have a question,” Simi said.
“Go ahead.”
“What are the names of the two leading political parties?”
Rita sighed. “Really? You work here. News reports have analysed these elections every day for the past month at least. It is the first election in the history of this country that the Election Commission has termed ‘inconclusive’. Aren’t you following the news?”
Tosan decided to answer. “MPC is the ruling party in the state. PPP is the opposition party. What exactly is your question?”
“You said we shouldn’t meddle with voters’ electoral rights – right?”
“Yes.”
“What if the opposition party miraculously leads and the ruling party asserts there were irregularities. Shouldn’t we report it?”
“Leave that to the international observers.”
“What if there is ballot box snatching?”
“The police and other security personnel will be there.”
“My last question,” the intern said. “If the election isn’t free and fair, what should we do?”
“We document it. Collect the people’s views on tape and camera. Go back to your hotel rooms, spend the night, hit the road the next day. Come back and hand your findings to the head of studio. They’ll take it from there.”
As the four leave the conference room, each one has a pervading thought in their minds. They hope and pray that they will return from Kano in peace and not in shattered pieces.
A loud horn sounded.
Like the maddening sound of algaita, it was a war cry. There were hunters, thugs, riff-raffs and pickpockets. The air was thick with ringlets of smoke. The kind of smoke that made you lose your senses when inhaled. Thick accented kirari – in Hausa language – rose from different coarse voices. The praises were for their master, there before them in flesh and blood. He wore a shiny white flowing gown made of obviously expensive fabric, with a red feathered cap sitting on his head. When he rose to speak, the raucous crowd fell silent. Some with the presence of mind whipped out their smartphones to start filming. They wanted a record of having been in Alhaji’s presence, of being part of his army, his chosen sheep.
The message for the army was quite simple. Anything more complex might confuse this army. They were to ensure that Fatima Lemu did not win the rerun. They were to use any means at their disposal to achieve this objective including the creative use of violence. If they did not do this, their long-awaited dividends of democracy would take longer in coming. Fatima would stop it. The other candidate just had to win, “koda tsiya, koda tsiya-tsiya”. At the utterance of those words, the army broke into deafening chants. Their commander had spoken. All over social media, clips of the address were uploaded and soon went viral.
Dejectedly Ajali walked back home.
He was not the person he used to be. The chance meeting with his friend’s blind grandmother made him realise how lucky he was to be alive. Before his friend passed away, they made big plans. Since he died, things had changed. The stupidest clash had cost him his life. Correctly put, his friend had died in his arms from multiple stab wounds. His last words were, “Try to leave this forsaken life we live. It will never take you anywhere.” Ajali remembered the words and it hurt his heart. His eyes misted with fresh tears. He brushed them off with his palms. The day his friend met his untimely death, his younger sister had cooked a meal of tuwon shinkafa da miyan taushe, served them both on a ceramic plate and encouraged them to eat before it got cold. Because the Angel of Death was calling, they’d promised her they would eat when they got back and rushed to the fight. It turned out it was Ajali who only returned with the lifeless body of his friend. The memory was still fresh: Ajali couldn’t shake it off his consciousness. He missed his friend, Ibrahim. They’d grown up together in the community where the only chance of survival for the youth was engaging in shady deals that had the potential of cutting their lives short anyway. The most popular was being a political thug. They rode on buses, campaigning. They disrupted elections by stealing ballot boxes and intimidating voters and election officials. They fought opposition members too.
Aminu had no western education. All he had was the Quranic education he received when he and other seven-year-olds canoed to the city to learn the Quran. Their parents never knew what kind of life they lived out there nor how some became radicalised from the misinterpretation of their faith. Aminu took out the expensive phone he bought two months earlier. He had acquired it from the proceeds from the last political rally he attended in the city. He swiped through the phone gallery and stared at a picture. Ibrahim smiled at him. Silently he whispered as though Ibrahim could hear him.
“For you, I will change. “
A debate among the candidates had been scheduled for 8:25 p.m. on Wednesday. It was going to show on state TV after the network news. The election had thrown up a dark horse and many people were interested in who the dark horse, Fatima Lemu, was and how she dared tread were angels feared to. Many people would be watching on the TV sets but many more would be tuned in on their shortwave radios.
There were three candidates: two men who were well known political gladiators and the lone woman. The male candidates had a lot in common. They had been in the corridors of power for a long time, had held various portfolios locally and nationally. Sponsored by different political godfathers, both were dour and uninspiring.
The third candidate was a different kettle of fish entirely. The one who had emerged against all odds. She was smart and her ideas were not run-of-the-mill. And she was courageous. Courageous because northern Nigeria is a stronghold of patriarchy and she had overcome significant opposition to get to where she had reached. In her quest for political power, she had heard it all. Women could not lead men for a variety of reasons: women were too emotional and not suitably matured to make the hard decisions that leadership at that level required; it was against religious dictates to allow women lead; a woman’s place was to be seen but not heard. Fatima Lemu was not going to let any of these stop her.
Candidate Number One: Musa, sixty years old, a child of a far-right politician, favoured by the establishment, whose political godfather was the much younger Alhaji, commander of the rag-tag army. Candidate Two: Nadir, seventy-five years old, an old politician who had been around since the early eighties. He’d tried unsuccessfully a couple of times to become governor of the state. The people said that because he so lacked charisma, even if he contested for the next twelve years, he would never win.
Fatima, in stark contrast, was thirty-three years old and fresh faced, was the candidate of a highly organised grassroots party which had won nothing in its last two outings. She was overwhelmingly popular amongst the youth, especially the female folk. A widow without a political godfather, she rose through the party structure in eight short years by sheer dint of hard work and genuine concern for her people.
Fatima had been dismissed as being a political neophyte so her success at the polls shocked her contenders and their followers.
On election day, as the results from the polling units trickled in and the incumbent saw that his succession plan was in peril, his clique activated agents within the Electoral Commission. That evening, the polls were declared inconclusive because “the election was marred by irregularities “.
A rerun was ordered.
A triumphant Fatima had stood in front of her campaign headquarters to address her supporters after the announcement. She congratulated her supporters on their doggedness, resilience and faith and assured them that even though they had not yet won, they certainly had not lost the election. She assured them that her win in the rerun scheduled to take place in three weeks would be so emphatic the Electoral Commission would not be able to deny it. She told her supporters that she knew they were exhausted by the electioneering process, but they needed one last push to claim victory. When she raised her fist in the Winnie Mandela/Black Panther style, the crowd cheered. The independent stations carried the news story and it only endeared her to more voters and infuriated those who did not want her. This unexpected press was why it became necessary to activate Alhaji and his army.
At the debate, Fatima’s competence shone through the hedging and cluelessness of her opponents. Aminu was interested in listening to the debate. He adjusted the bud of the earpiece in his ear that was connected to the radio in his phone.
“Unlike my predecessors, what I would do tackle unemployment is not work in progress. It is something that the Fatima Lemu Foundation has already done. We are equipping the youths with different skills and vocations to become useful members of society. We no longer want an untrained army of uneducated youths who are unemployable because they have no training or skills and are only useful for fomenting violence, while our own children are busy acquiring the best education we can afford. Wise people say that instead of giving someone fish every day, it is better to teach them to fish for themselves. At the Fatima Lemu Foundation, we evaluate each person with a view to finding out their strengths and with their input, discover what skills they would excel at and train them in it. We have done this as an NGO, now think how much more we can do, how many more youths we can reach when we are in government…”
The applause from the studio audience was thunderous and drowned the moderator’s appeal for quiet.
Two days to the rerun.
Aminu’s father called him to his room. “My son,” he said, “I know how it has been for you. We have not always gotten along and as hard as I have tried to set you on the right path, I know my efforts have been futile. You have grown too big to be beaten and all that did anyway was to further estrange us. I have never liked the fact that my son is a notorious gang member that politicians deploy to terrorise the community during elections. Another election is upon us. I just want to ask you to please keep away from the electoral activities. Please. I have been having strange dreams lately.”
Respect made Aminu remain silent even though there was so much he had to say. After a period of awkward silence, his father said, “That is all I wanted to say to you.” Aminu thanked his father and left.
One day to the rerun.
The white bus with the sign “PRESS” emblazoned on both sides was set for the 12-hour trip to Kano. The four passengers had loaded their bags and equipment. They were all quite apprehensive and the prayer Tosan led before they took off did little to assuage their fears. Simi adjusted her big designer sunglasses that covered her face from forehead to chin. Rita was restless. She brought out a paperback and flipped to the page where she had stopped. Tosan searched for appropriate music to play but gave up when he decided it was probably better for them all to remain solemn. Tarsen prayed his rosary. The driver revved the engine and they drove out of the premises.
Rerun Day
Chaos.
It’s the only way to describe what was happening. Ballot papers and the electoral officers arrived late. The voters register to be used for accreditation was nowhere to be found. The sun was high in the sky, shining in all its glory on the humans in the long snaking lines under it. Finally, the officials arrived with their paraphernalia and equipment and began to set up. When they were ready to begin accreditation, they found the card readers unwilling to cooperate.
Fear.
Five Hiace buses parked under the neat row of dogonyaro trees lining the road to the school compound. Youths poured from the buses. Many looked like they were operating under the influence of some other-worldly power, all of them with barely concealed weapons. They dispersed to the various polling units in the area. The fear their presence caused was palpable, but most people held their nerves and remained on the lines.
One voter was visibly angry because his thumb impression had been rejected six times in a row by the card reader, but it finally agreed that he was the person on the card. Accreditation over, he joined a new queue to vote.
The presiding officer with his NYSC peak cap asks, “Where is your card?” He shows it. The young man hands him the ballot paper and motions him to go toward the booth to vote.
A tall thin boy, one of those from the buses, walks to the booth.
“Put your right thumb here,” he said.
His voice is quiet, but the menacing undertone is unmistakable. The ugly snarl on his face put to rest any doubt about his intentions.
“This is not my political party! That one is!”
Everyone on the line looks on without interfering.
Another young man has joined them. Stocky with a more affable disposition, the voter looked to him for some form of support.
“Do as he says!” the stocky fellow thunders. “Or you’ll lose all fingers!”
The man needed no further prompting.
As if on cue, more buses deposited more young men wielding all sorts of weapons. Some wore Fulani attires, some in rags so old it was difficult to tell what colours they were.
The press bus from Lagos also pulled into the chaotic scene at the polling unit. The crew members got out and as Simi took in the scene, she could not help herself.
She said, “Is this an election or a feast for thugs?”
Tina, exasperated by her lack of tact retorted, “That’s the reason we travelled here remember?”
They started to set up their cameras to join the studios in Lagos live. Tosan helped Simi wear her mic as the driver unloaded the camera for Tarsen’s use.
The youth sitting and smoking under the dogonyaro trees observed them laconically. One of the young men peeled away from the group and walked towards the press team. They were too busy setting up and had not noticed his approach. When he got near them, he scrapped the two cutlasses he carried on the tarred road. The noise it made and the sparks it created startled the Lagosians.
“Holy God!” Simi screamed and jumped.
“Toh ku fa?” the boy asked. At that moment, the press people from Lagos realised they had made no provisions for an interpreter. They resorted to the “hausanised” English they were familiar with.
“Aboki,” Tosan, visibly shaken ventured. “We news people… kum prum Legas.”
“Kai! Shashasha, speak frofally,” the cutlass-brandishing fellow barked.
“We are just trying to show the nation how the election was conducted here. Freely and fairly,” Simi offered in a meek voice, obeying his instruction to speak properly. “If you don’t mind, we can start the interview with you.”
“My face not for TV,” he said dismissively. “Fack your equifment and go. Election here is peaceful.”
The news crew have no idea how to tackle the issue. They look around. No security agents, no international or local observers, nothing. Was the long journey from Lagos going to be fruitless? More youths had been drawn to the scene out of curiosity.
“Me ya kawo wadannan kuma?”
“Manema labarai ne daga Legas,” the aggressor said.
“Su koma Legas su fada cewa komai daidai ne,” someone in the crowd said.
“Ya bada kudin tallafi kuwa?” another asked.
“Ko sisi bai bada ba.” the aggressor retorted.
Tosan decided it was time to pack it all in. They had done their best in the circumstances. Under the watchful gaze of the mob, they packed their equipment, got on the bus and went back to their hotel.
Epilogue
It was generally agreed that the rerun was neither free nor fair. Thugs prevented observers both local and international from performing their functions. The media was unable to cover the elections as they were not provided the necessary cover by the security agencies. The few who were deployed were outnumbered and clearly ill-equipped: it was safer for them to turn a blind eye to the activities of political thugs and ballot snatchers. There were also clashes between the supporters and thugs on opposing sides.
It has been two years since, and the members of the mob used to destabilise the community have been decommissioned until the next elections. Other than sorrow, tears, blood and scars, there is not much to show for their participation. Some people say the youths are wiser now. Only time, the year 2023, will tell if the mistakes of the past will not be repeated.
Aminu did change. He found respite in the skills acquisition classes he attended on three weekdays, courtesy of the Fatima Lemu Youth Foundation. Fatima herself died mysteriously in her sleep shortly after she lost the election. No illness. She just went to bed on a Saturday night and never woke up. Her death was a great loss to the entire community. On the day of her funeral, thousands of supporters from far and wide came to pay their last respects. She left behind three young daughters aged three, nine and twelve. Aminu cried the day he heard the news of her demise. She had changed him. Because of her he had a new lease of life, a second chance. A chance to do Ibrahim and Baba proud.
Some of the newly reformed youths who were thugs had followed suit and were also acquiring basic skills. There is a lot of advocacy on electronic media nowadays asking people to shun all forms of violence. Fatima started it. It was her legacy. Now religious and community leaders too have taken up the battle cry. They know too well the catastrophic effects of violence. They have done their part. It is left for the youths to show that they have heard the message. I am reminded of late Tupac, his song—All Eyes on Us. Or something like that.
THE END
Glossary
Aboki — Friend. Ajali — Death (mostly a nickname). Algaita — Local trumpet. “Ba wani shege!”— (derogatory) “There is no illegitimate son/ there is no bastard”. Dogonyaro tree— Neem tree. “Dole ayi mu...” — (derogatory) “It is compulsory to vote for us”. “Fack your equifment” — (Hausa accented English) “Pack your equipment”. “Frofally” —---- (Hausa accented English) Properly. Jalabiya—Long flowing garment worn by men. “Kai, Shashasha” — “You fool!” Kilishi —- Spicy, dried meat cut in thin slices. Kirari —- (mostly sung for politicians by political praise singers or for hunters) Praise. “Ko sisi bai bada ba.”—--- “He did not pay a penny”. “Koda tsiya koda tsiya-tsiya.” (derogatory, used by politicians) A do-or-die attitude/winning at all cost. “kum prum legas” —- (Hausa accented English) “Come from Lagos”. “Manema labarai ne daga legas.”—- “They are news reporters from Lagos.” “Me ya kawo wadannan kuma?” — “What bought these people?” “Sai ma rannar...”---- (derogatory) “Until that day”/ “We wait for that day”. “Su koma legas su fada cewa komai daidai ne.”— “They should go back to Lagos and report that everything is going well.” “Toh ku fa” — “What about you?” Tuwon shinkafa da miyan taushe — Rice pudding and pumpkin soup. “Ya bada kudin tallafi kuwa?” — “Did he pay money for subsidy?”
