'Go, Man, Go' By Adesina Ogunlana

Eni egungun
Lese lo n se
Laka n laka
Ta la be lo (Yoruba Proverb)
(The needy perforce goes to
the provider)


For the past three weeks now I have been on the campaign train of my candidate for the office of the 2nd Vice-president of the NBA, Oludare Akande of the Ikeja branch.


Most of this time was spent traversing the whole of the North. We were, so to say, everywhere. We had meetings with the Lokoja, Lafia, Bauchi, Birnin Kebbi, Kafanchan, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jos, Jalingo, Makurdi, Minna, Maiduguri, Gboko, Gusau, Gombe, Sokoto, Suleija, Wukari, Yola, Okene, Pankshin, Damaturu, Idah branches of our great association, the N.B.A.


Our peregrinations could not have covered less than ten thousand kilometers, for truly the North is a vast space.


When we got to Kaduna, we met an elder and a former president of the association Prince Lanke Odogiyon. The Egbon welcomed as cheerfully
to his sizeable office and interacted meaningfully with us. But he expressed a view, which went unchallenged due only out of respect for the author.
According to the Prince-President, it was regrettable and dismaying that contestants for offices into the Executive Committee of the N.B.A had to cover huge distances on campaign trails.


Said Odogiyon '"when a lady, a contestant from one of the Eastern states phoned me that she would be coming to Kaduna to campaign to us, I was shocked. Come to Kaduna for what? I told her not to come.
It is too dangerous, too stressful and too expensive to be travelling up and down the country because of votes. In my time as president we banned this moving up and down but I don't know why Akeredolu is allowing it. May be we are not serious about this thing, because there has been no case of fatal accidents attending our campaigns."


With due respect to the Prince of the Niger, I see no merit at all in his position. When did going on the hustings by candidates seeking elective posts become a crime?


I have always thought that Law and Politics are soul-mates and that lawyers are best suited to understand political philosophy and practice than any other class of people.


One of the key ingredients of Democracy as a political system is election based on the equality of voting franchise of "one man, one vote." Even an ass knows this.
Two, the votes, specifically the majority of votes determine who gets the office.
Three, the votes we talk about never take up residence with the candidate, but with the electorate.


As the matters stand it is clear that the candidate in the democratic set-up must need go the 'house of votes' and interact with the occupants (electorate) in the hope that they will yield the votes with them to him.


The blunt truth is that the candidate who wants to win election in a democracy and sees no good reason to meet the electorate is any one of these four things - unserious, mad, anti-democrat or an election rigger.


Now, friends, citizens, fellow countrymen, where is the electorate of the NBA? They are, I trust you know, in the 88 branches of the NBA, scattered all over the surface of the Nigerian Earth.


It is from these 88 branches that you have the delegates who will vote on election day. It is very simple then. Candidates have no choice than to go to these branches to gain their support.


As to the first charge that campaigning nationwide is too expensive, I say being expensive is normal in democracy. Indigent contestants, who have lean financial muscles, have no business in the fray.
The incidences of winning the electorate to the candidate's side to wit, printing manifestoes, printing and posting hand-bills and posters, provisions of transportation, accommodation, security, feeding and sundry incidentals for the campaign train necessarily costs money. So a candidate who does not have funds and cannot raise funds should limit his political ambition within the boundaries of his sitting room.


The second charge that it is too dangerous for candidates to embark on nation-wide tours and campaigns also cannot stick.


So far in the annals of the history of the N.B.A no candidate or his campaign team mates has ever died or been involved in ghastly accidents. And even if this happens, it is nothing strange or unusual, vehicular accidents are one of the sad realities of life. And to those shouting "what of armed robbers and kidnappers?" my answer is "The Lord is my Shepherd" The threats of such are not enough to defer serious candidates from campaigning. By the way must a person be on a campaign tour before he suffers kidnap or robbery or any other evil?


The charge of stress is to me laughable. A democracy that is not stressful, you can be sure is not a living democracy.


Democracy has been famously defined as "Government of the people by the people and for the people.


If you have a weak or weakened bio system, why participate in politics? You must have strength for endless meetings, consultations, visits ' and receptions. Oh yes, democracy is stressful, but you only feel the stress too badly when you do not have the passion and the strength for the game.


When you are a committed democrat you won't call getting out to meet the
electorate you will eventually serve, if elected, stressful. If merely reaching out to the electorate my dear lazy bone candidate is stressful, what will you call serving them?


For me and my team, our campaign to the North to the West, Mid-West and the East was more fun than pain.


Everyday of the campaign was an education, in geography, history, culture, agro-economy, tourism etc.
There were so many beautiful and memorable encounters in our interactions with colleagues in the various branches.


In Akwanga we paid a courtesy visit to the Judge of the High Court. He turned out to be one of principled judges who gave the historic judgement in the case of Mimiko vs Agagu, ensuring peace and progress instead of chaos and frustration in Ondo state.


In Damaturu, I saw the largest collection of tractors ever, may be numbering more than 400. Yet they were just the remainder of the lot given out to farmers in the state.


In Gusau, I had certainly the best fura de nono of my life. This wonderful
quality was only rivalled by the dambu nono and fura de nono of Gombe town. It was in Gombe that I was introduced to dambu nono.


The Gombe nono is so good that the next NEC meeting should hold there and the next in Gusau. In Birinin Kebbi, we learnt that not all that glitters is
gold. The impressive looking hotel we stayed the night, rejoiced in the name "ZINARI" which means gold in Hausa language.


My resolve that I would name my first daughter ever, Zinari, dissolved in the middle of the night when PHCN struck as usual and wicked mosquitoes took over, feasting greedily on us. All through the ordeal the only person who appeared at peace under the bombardment happened to be the only northerner amongst us, inspiring some of us to think that there was perhaps, tribalism even among mosquitoes!


Between Jalingo and Maiduguri, we saw something that almost disproved the biblical parable of the seed sown in a rocky place. Unlike the Biblical seed which germinated poorly, the ones we saw in Biu and its environs sprang lustily up to the sky even though their roots lay below and amidst crags. We are talking of places where the furrows of the ridges are rows
and rows of stones.


And what stones! So heavy were they given their relative sizes that we suspected they contained iron ore. Impressed, I took two samples home, only for my wife to exclaim upon my arrival "after all these days in the North, it is only stone you bring comot!”


On the way to Gombe, I saw for first time a shepherdess driving a herd of cows numbering about thirty.
Another proof that what a man can do a woman can copy! It was also on this journey that I saw for the first time a herd or is it a pack of donkeys about forty strong. Before then I had thought that donkeys were unsociable loners.


From Awka to Onitsha to Agbor to Ugehlli, our reception involved the presentation, 'wedjing' and breaking of kolanuts. Not to talk of wine gifts. Oh, what wonderful hosts our colleagues were.


Face to face, goes the ancient adage, is better than a thousand letters. I agree. By visiting our colleagues in their various bases, we learnt first hand of their challenges, aspirations and requests. Only a few of our hosts appreciated SMS politicians.
Boy, I can't wait for the 2012 political season come. To democrats willing to pay the price, campaigning all over the country is another name for in-
land vacation!