How I wasted huge sums in pursuit of Kaduna governorship -Sha’aban
Alhaji Sani Sha’aban
You contested the governorship election of Kaduna State in 2007. Can we share from your own experience in chronological order, how expensive your campaign was right from when you picked the nomination form?
What we went through in the 2007 elections, whether you like it or not, is beyond many people. We are familiar with some governorship candidates who touched only the state headquarters and the headquarters of some senatorial districts. By this, they reserve all their resources until the final day of the elections when they will come in full force to buy over whoever they believe could be their stumbling block.
But personally, I wanted to reach out to every nook and cranny of the state. I wanted to reach out to the grassroots and see for myself the situation people face. I also wanted to hear it directly from the people I was preparing to serve. I wanted to have a view of how people in each local government, ward by ward, were doing. You can’t sit in the state capital and come out with the best blueprint for development. You need the people’s inputs, which you can only accurately have by meeting them personally. If you are to quantify all this in terms of financial obligations, it indeed, involves a lot of money. As an aspirant, you have to spend lots of money before you become your party’s flag bearer. For instance, before I became the flagbearer of the ANPP, I embarked upon two campaigns. I traversed the 23 local government areas of the state and at least, I was moving with a motorcade of nothing less than 300 vehicles. Everybody in Kaduna state knew of the Sha’aban campaign train.
Let us assume that out of 300 vehicles, about 120 of them are all buses and those buses have to be hired at a conservative estimate of N15, 000 per bus. How about feeding the party faithfuls in the buses? Let us say you are giving each of the people accompaying you N500 per day; which is for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. This goes on for like a day or two before you return to refresh and go back. Kaduna state has 23 local government areas and it took us about two and a half months to go round.
As you are going round the state, you have so many interest groups to attend to. You have, for instance, the youth wings to attend to, the women groups are also there, you have one Islamic function or one church bazaar to attend and you have to drop some money for them as a form of encouragement and appreciation. You equally attend to personal individual demands of members of your campaign train. The situation is such that you may find that some people who believe in your cause are in dire need. If you calculate all the expenses for about two and a half months just to get the party’s ticket, you would imagine how much it will be. It is not easy at all.
Another important aspect is registering your presence in all the local government areas and all the wards in the state. Each of the LGA has an average of 10 wards; and you have to have an office in all of them. You have to rent an office at an average cost of N25, 000 in every ward. You have to furnish the office, equip it and hire at least an administrative secretary to man the office. You are also financing the activities that take place in the office. All this have to be taken care of by you.
The situation is such that the ward chairmen get back to their local government chairmen, the local government chairmen get back to zonal coordinators and the zonal coordinators get back to the main campaign secretariat itself. All this has to be taken care of. And you can’t treat Peter and leave Paul. This is to say that you can’t make one LGA a priority at the detriment of others. Campaign is very expensive because you may have all the support and popularity but you have to lubricate your machines. People don’t want to know how good you are or the good programmes you want to present but they would say if actually you have their interest at heart, you would show it to us. If you have N10, they would say let us see how you are going to use, are you are going to share it with us or you will share it with only your family?
What happens during the party primaries?
It is really a herculean task. First, you have to ensure that you transport the delegates from all the corners of the state. Not only that, to a certain extent, you have to prepare for the accommodation of over 80 percent of the delegates coming for the primaries. In my own case, we are talking about Kaduna. How much is the cheapest hotel in Kaduna? The least amount you would get per room is probably N5, 000 per night. Can you put two or three people per room? The answer is no because each delegate believes he is a king. If you treat him shabbily, then it is at your own risk. You are to suffer for it. You can imagine the number of delegates also.
How many are they?
For instance, in my own local government area, Sabon Gari, we have eleven wards and each ward has a minimum of one delegate. You equally have delegates from the youth wing, the elders’ wing, the women wing, among others. If you multiply that by 23, then you know what you will get. These are the basic, minus the other hidden expenses. You have to take care of the media, the security and at least the people who are going to man the secretariat for you.
What happens on the Election Day?
After I became the flagbearer of the ANPP, the financial burden multiplied. This is because you are no longer talking about internal party contest; It is now you versus about 40 political parties in the race, each party candidate with his own approach and strategy that you can’t risk ignoring. You have to really prepare your budget for the media; it is very expensive. You know how much it costs to place a full page advertorial; you have to produce all the posters, banners and handbills for the campaigns that would be distributed to every ward in the state-all this means real money. You know that as you go on campaigns, you don’t go empty handed. You have to get a token gift to give to the people to ginger them up. The women would ask of campaign wrappers, the men would ask of caps and tee- shirts, pins, biros and all sorts of souvenirs. And as you are producing them it has to be continuous. As the campaign goes on, advertising companies will bring you a new concept and so on. If you look at this materials alone within the three and a half months after you got the party ticket, you would be talking in the region of spending N50 to N60 million.
And here comes the d-day, which is two to three days to the election date. The election fever is there and everyone is grieving. You have to have each and every ballot box manned by an individual. In a ward, you would find out that there are three to four ballot boxes. That is where party faithfuls come in. You have to have people who really believe in your cause. You cannot be everywhere nor have the ability to finance everyone who protects your box. There is nobody who contests election in Nigeria without paying the agency fees. You have to ring up funds to take care of your agents. Your agents can’t protect your box from 6am to 6pm when the election closes with an empty stomach. He definitely has to feed. Again, you can’t afford to put one person there. Somebody has to stand in for him if he has to ease himself or even pray. That is to say, each box has to have at least two or three people. Let us assume you are given N500 to every agent, do you know how that would cost you?
You have been in the courts in the last three and a half years. How about the legal expenses?
I believe that my counsel, Chief Mike Ahamba is not doing it for money sake, if it were for money, he would have since ran away. He has been a gentleman. Of course, we meet up the finances right from the tribunal. But sometimes, we understand each other. The counsel needs N10 for instance, but we can only afford N5 and he accepts it. That is what we have been doing in the last three and a half years right from the tribunal through the Court of Appeal and up to the Supreme Court.
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