13 CHAPTER THIRTEEN A STRANGE FACE IN THE ELECTORAL OFFICE

A week later, a strange thing happened in the electoral office. It was the week that opened the season of the elections, everyone with interest to run for any elective office must pick their form to officially show their intention to the city.

However, there has been rumours that the mayor will go through this election as he did in the last election, for in the last election nobody contested against him; and this was due to these following two reasons.

The first was due to his impact and the effective way he handled the affairs of the city in his first tenure, for that was when he redesigned the city court complex and the council's complex. Apart from these two, he did some other things that elevated the city above many other cities in the country, and this tickled the pride of the people so much that they just laid off and nobody contested the election with him just to honour his achievements.

However, what the people generally do not know at that time was that the mayor used propagandas to keep people off from contesting the election against him. He planned this from the beginning with some of his loyalists, that they should begin to act as oppositions during his first tenure.

So these people were the most notable critics of his government, so when the last election season opened, four of them picked forms to signify they wanted to run against him, but before the submission date the strongest among them withdrew saying, though he did not like the Mayor's method of doing things; but he can't denied that he did well, and he is withdrawing to give him time to finish what he has began.

When he withdrew as planned, some other important people sponsored along side this preplanned foe began to go around saying, he withdrew because he knew that he won't get just one vote in this city, because the whole city is behind the Mayor.

And they even began to peddle the rumours that others too were planing to withdraw for the Mayor. True to their rumours, every one of them withdrew, and they did not just withdrew; they also joined the Mayor's camp and campaigned for him.

This was the way he kept people way from contesting against him in the last election, all the people who should have entered into the race stepped back when they saw the people they thought were his supposed biggest opposition turned around and became his campaigners.

In this present season he is hoping to cash in on the success of that last orchestrated deceit, and his men are already all over the place with propaganda that all the eminent people of the city has agreed that the Mayor should run for the third term so that he can gained strength to go forward and be the Governor of the state.

By law, a person can only run for three terms in one elective office in the country, but in history nobody has achieved this, most people only manage to survive their second term and got voted out. Some even used only one term and were voted out for low performance. So if the Mayor can pull it off it will give him a super achiever image, and opportunity and edge above others who may want to contest as governor when he will step out after this third tenure as governorship aspirant.

It looked as if his plan is on course on this particular day that opens the season of election, he was calmly assured nobody will come out to contest against him, but he was shocked when he got to the electoral office and he was told to wait till an aspirant that is inside should finish procuring her form.

He asked the officer he met at the door these two questions, "Who is this her and what office is she guning for?"

With reverence the guard answered, "Sir, it is the girl that refused to showed up on the wedding day. ( This officer purposely called Tolu gir to belittled her in order to show the Mayor he is on his side) And from what I have been hearing since they arrived...." The Mayor cuts in with a question, "Who were the they with her?

The officer answered and said, " Sir Boripe, Sir Bitrus, Senator Segun, Mrs Funmi Oge and The kid Lawyer sir, and I heard she want to pick form for your office sir!"

The mayor was shocked beyond words when he heard this and he unconsciously said aloud, "That can't be, that small rat will contest against me for the Mayor office, no that can't be!"

He was too taken up with what he was saying and thinking, he did not notice that the door has opened and Sir Boripe has come out and he is listening to him. To bring him back to his conscious state, Sir Boripe sounded heh , heh, heh as if he is trying to clear his throat and he said, "Oh Mayor good morning, are you here to pick form too?"

The Mayor was too shocked and embarrassed that Sir Boripe caught him off guard with his blurted out hate speech that he could not answered him.

Sir Boripe too did not wait for his answer, he moved on and all his company filed out after him. Tolu came out last, when he saw the Mayor she did him obeisance like a well groomed girl from a very sound cultured home, but the Mayor could not respond to her beautiful courtesy! His heart has been instantaneously filled with acidic hatred for her, when Tolu saw the hatred on his face she shook her head in amazement and left.