15 CHAPTER FIFTEEN VOTE BUYING

Although, it was not in the Mayor's plan to campaign for this incoming election before, but when he saw the direction things are going; he made a plan to fight dirty and win the election at all cost.

Sir Boripe and some top tough eminent people in the city may not be behind him, but it cannot be so bad that it won't remain a person with a soul.

Especially people who have not seen through his fabricated innocence like Boripe. One of such is Sir Alexi, a man so wealthy though not as Boripe. He is in the front line of telecommunication industries in the country, and he is of the opinion that Tolu should not go scot free for what he did to Richie.

So it is now shocking to him to hear that Tolu want to be a Mayor in this city where he lives, to him if they allow that to happen there will be too many crisis in the city in future, because she will be a bad inspiration for all their women. Most importantly he believed she is already breaking traditions by leaving the the women,s ascribed zone to break into what he terms men's role.

To him, women should mind the home and raised their children, and if they are the ambitious type, they should do some little businesses like running stores, not to poke their noses in the affairs of the city. People like him are the reasons their city have not witness a female Mayor like all the big cities in the nation, he and men of like minds had vowed never to see a woman Mayor rule in this city in their life times.

So he formed affinity with people of the same opinions and they called the Mayor into a secret meeting in the night. When the Mayor got there and he saw the ten men that were on seat, they may individually not be as wealthy as Sir Boripe, but combined they are stronger than him. Their city is the commercial nerve center of the nation, so more rich people of the nation lives or do businesses here.

Sir Alexi told him straight the reason they sent for him and they asked him to give them his idea of how he plans to navigate through this election. He told him that they are satisfy with him been a Mayor, and they support his third term bid and dream to become the Governor of the State later.

He further said, even if he has not done well they will rather manage him than to have a woman come and sit as a ruler over them, so whatever it will cost to retain the Mayor's office he should tell them.

Hearing this, the Mayor gave them the true analysis of the situation. He told them that the girl's campaign is going to be based on emotions, that majority of women are already seeing her as a person who can champion their course based on how she trashed that Randy Richie and how they dealt with that Judge who ran away. And the women's population is really huge; if she can sway them and have some few men like Boripe who is loosing his senses of how things ought to be, she will win the election.

To him the only way to tackle this kind of situation is to buy the vote of the people.

Sir Alexi asked, "How can we do that without getting on the wrong side of the law, because if we are caught giving people money we can be jailed.

The Mayor said, " We don't need to give them money to buy their vote, all we need to do is to give them incentives during our campaign, everywhere we go to campaign we will make free WiFi available, and you know this days data is life.

Once the populace hear that there is a free data where we campaign, all the young people both males and females will fill flock into our campaign grounds. Apart from this we can make customised phones available at give away prices.

On the Phone,my image will be there and our programmes will be advertised every time they open it. You will give them the phones as a form of give back to society and as means to show support for a worthy Mayor that has turned around the standard of living in our city.

If we can do this, we will see mammoth crowd everywhere we turn, and we will cover the rest with propagandas and rigging.

When he finished with his analysis they liked it, and they donated seriously to back his ideas.

So, the turn out in his first campaign was out of this world because the people like free gifts, there was serious crowd crisis that gave the police huge headache. When Sir Boripe saw what he is doing he laughed and said, "Even with your attempt to buy the people we will still beat you, soon your campaign grounds will be empty of people"