Awka — The convoy, comprising state-of-the-art sport utility vehicles, spoke much on the status of the man being conveyed to the campaign ground.

Branded vehicles followed the train with pictures of a governorship candidate emblazoned on their sides. As the crowd of his supporters ran after him, the convoy made a detour to a traditional ruler's palace and every activity in the area would stand still. In apparent show of respect, other road users stopped and waved their hands to the august visitors.

The candidate would come down from one of the black jeeps along with his Director General of the Campaign Organisation and walk into the warm embrace of their host.

The meeting would not last more than ten minutes and the vehicles would pull out and head for the rally venue. The crowd would chant solidarity songs and tell the governorship candidate that "you are there, in fact it is unopposed, take us to government House Awka, in short go and prepare for your swearing-in in March 2010."

Before the candidate would make his speech, a solo speaking voice with a very high pitch would erupt and begin to sing those ballads that paint eulogising pictures of him. Down there among the crowd, self-acclaimed ward and local government coordinators were already drawing lists of members present at the occasion and running among the crowd of people in search of the "Director for Logistics."

As the guests took their leave, the crowd would go after them with the commercial motorcycle operators (Okada) displaying all they knew best in cycling. Of course, all the walls in the local government area were adorned with the colourful posters of the candidate, selling the impression that there was no other candidate known to the people besides the current guest.

Ironically, when the entire dust of the candidate's visit had settled, trouble immediately ensued. The candidate announced N500,000 for the party members and N1million for the rest of the crowd. But the self-acclaimed coordinators were telling a different story.

"No, I heard His Excellency say N1.500 million and not N750,000 for everybody. You better produce our money or nobody goes home with his arms and legs intact," one of the henchmen who felt shortchanged threatened.

But his opponent was not bothered. "You can go ahead and do whatever you like after all what stakes do you have in the campaign organisation? I told you it is N750,000 and nothing more. You know these people, they will announce millions before the crowd and when they are about to go they will give you what is in their minds," he maintained.

When the argument became stronger and tempers rising, the party chairman and campaign coordinator would call for a brief meeting in the office inviting few party stalwarts. Shortly after the meeting the man demanding full disclosure of the sum would come out, take some supporters and call the names of party members and at the end, a large number of party members would be announced as none members and that ended it.

Elsewhere, a member of a campaign organisation had been at the campaign office in Awka, waiting patiently for stakeholders meeting. He had been there for about four hours and not even an okada man dropped off a member, let alone a major stakeholder.

Angrily, he went home only to receive a phone call from a fellow member that the meeting was held in a hotel and some people that the Director General did not like the size of their nose were not allowed to attend.

Deepening the frustration of the man was the fact that motorcycles, cloths and face caps were distributed along with very fat envelopes. The man got angry and held a meeting with the affected people. The outcome of the meeting was that the posters given to them to paste and the billboards had finished and there was urgent need to print more. The group would by-pass the Director General talk terms with the Director of Publicity, the governorship candidate and over N10million would be released for printing and mounting of more billboards and posters. One week later, the group would go to their homes and bring out the posters and billboards hidden for two weeks and begin to paste them. Then four persons including the Director of Publicity would share the whooping sum of N10 million among themselves.

Away from the in-fighting in the respective political parties and the campaign organisations, the crowd of supporters, loyal and rented, are also part of this comic drama call the Anambra election campaigns.

It has become common to see a particular crowd appearing in every campaign rally held by candidates. Sometimes the same prayer singer that sang for one candidate would sing for another candidate.

In fact, a particular retired school principal was seen in the house of a governorship candidate and for more than two hours he was running down on another candidate and celebrating what he called the high qualities of the man he was in his house.

Of course he went home happy and accomplished, only to be seen that evening in the house of the same candidate he had earlier vilified.

This reporter also met him there and asked him what he had come to do. Expectedly, he quickly denied going to the first candidate's house and even denied his name. When he saw this reporter chatting with the candidate, he vanished within seconds in his old 504-saloon car.

But the 25 governorship candidates are not concerned by the day light deceits of their so-called supporters. The candidates have been neck deep in selling their manifestoes to the electorate in a most humorous manner. More interesting is the fact that the candidates have jettisoned the age long electoral violence that leaves sorrow, tears and blood as the regular trademark.

A look at their manifestoes and how they analyse them paints a picture of hilarious expository of politicking. Dr Chris Ngige of the Action Congress (AC), for instance, claims to have constructed more roads than any other governor and most of those infrastructures are his major trump card.

But Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, would trivialise Ngige's achievement as pedestrian.

"My 'African Dubai Taiwan' is not what would be achieved with the meager state allocations from the Federal Allocations Commission (FAC) or with the pieces of revenue from Onitsha and Nnewi business commercial and industrial towns. This is not a question of building roads and making noise about it. We are talking about the amazing future of Anambra State and the hope that I see." Ngige would not wait for him to come down before retorting, "This Dubai Taiwan thing is funny. The man should make Anambra look like Asaba or Lagos before Dubai or Taiwan. Besides, Dubai has economic crisis and they owe a lot. Some consortiums of businessmen and conglomerates have come in to help Dubai. So somebody should tell our brother that he is dreaming. We still need these roads, electricity and other basic infrastructures to attract foreign donors. They do not give you anything for nothing."

Soludo would not let go. He would present his intimidating credentials of a first class degree holder, a professor, former economic adviser and former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor. But Ngige would contend that one does not need to have a degree in econometrics to be a good administrator, adding that the minimum qualification is WAEC certificate attempted.

Governor Peter Obi must have the best advertisement copywriters compared to other candidates. Even before the election period, his billboards told the story more. In this election, tagged Change We Believe In, which obviously is against Iyom Uche Ekwunife of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) that christened hers as The Change We Need. Obi's billboards would present pictures of laughing children and a mother breastfeeding a child. He would also showcase a billboard of a prototype building complex standing beside an uncompleted project and it would read, "What Mr. Peter Obi is doing."

While the spaces for the billboards appeared to have been covered, the governor resorted to hanging small side billboards on stands of streetlights. Some of such billboards apparently cut the picture of Obi's as staff of one of the oil companies in Nigeria, as a yellow helmet is superimposed on his picture.

Ekwunife is a rare breed politician. She is a woman with the heart of a man. Iyom, as she is called, has indeed given Anambra women a new face in politics.

Dressed to her best, Ekwunife would visit stalls in every market in Anambra sit with the traders asking for their votes. Ekwunife's campaign, aside from being hinged on youth empowerment and development of rural communities, paints a picture of mother and child brand of politics. At a rally in Nnewi, Ekwunife exhibited motherhood. "It is only a mother that understands the plights of her children. I am not saying that the fathers do not have any role to play, but the mother is closer to the children and reads the lips and minds of her children better than the fathers. So I urge you all to vote for a mother because mama gives when hunger strikes. "I represent the symbol of motherhood and that is what it is. I have never failed you before and I cannot afford to fail you now that it matters most. Anambra has seen a lot of trouble and it takes a woman, a mother to restore peace and love in Anambra.

"Take a look at a man that lost his wife and you can see how devastated he can be, let the mother step into the government house and restore peace into her family," she said.

Soludo with his deep baritone voice cuts the picture of a schoolteacher addressing his students. He has a constant song that has become a common feature in most of his campaign rallies.

Soludo would mount the soapbox, put his tall red cap to shape and chant the first verse of his song: "Anambra has good luck, God loves us all." The song would later electrify the arena and the women on uniform would snatch the microphone from the master of ceremony and the chorus would linger for minutes.

While addressing the crowd of supporters, he would draw his running mate, Senator Emma Anosike, closer, embrace him, raise his hands and introduce him as a perfect match, apparently to put paid to insinuations that they had been at daggers-drawn.

He would not fail to tell the world his achievements as a CBN Governor, interjecting it with his policies on the banking sector that led to the recapitalisation of the commercial banks.

Soludo is not alone in this soapbox rendition of songs. Dr. Andy Uba of the Labour Party (LP) is equally a singer of songs. Uba's song is that of supplications to God. "God in heaven you saved me when my spirit is in trouble. I give you thanks. I come to you with good thanks. I come to you with good praise. I shall sing the spiritual song to show that you are great. Forgive me my sins oh God, so that I shall benefit from your grace. Remember your promised to carry this cross. You promised that you would be my own. So I am before you to partake in your blessing," he would chant. After the song, Uba would present a tractor and some motorcycles to the people.

Obi is not lost in the religious trend. Though he does not have any religious song attached to his campaign rallies, his executive council members and party faithful do have their own song. "He is Peter the rock, the rock of Anambra state, the rock of continuity," they chorus. The governor also hinges his campaign on the town union leaders who he believes would galvanize support for him at all times. He would attend morning masses, flaunt his chaplet to all who care to see, that he is close to God. He would take pictures with Reverend Fathers and Bishops and ensure they received wide publicity. He also has Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu as his joker. One of his billboards has Ojukwu raising his hands. But the advertisement copywriters are seen by observers as making a fundamental mistake by presenting what they called Ojukwu's last wish that Anambra should vote for Obi. "Is Ojukwu dying today? Are they telling us that the man is ready to die and he is now making his last wish," they asked.

Even on the campaign dress of Governor Peter Obi is the picture of Ojukwu and the governor. Jokingly, Ngige had asked Obi if Ojukwu is his running mate or he (Peter) is Ojukwu's running mate.

Ngige's jokes and comics cut the picture of the first and second republic politicians. Some claimed that he might have understudied the flamboyancy of the Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Michael Okpara and Dr. Sam Mbakwe. Ngige has a penchant for drawing the crowd of his fellow contestants to himself. Instances abound of rallies of some candidates taking place in a town and he (Ngige) was to attend another rally of the Action Congress (AC). When he got to the boundary of the local government area the electorate would wave their brooms, a symbol of the Action. He would open the door of his jeep, step out and begin to shake the hands of the crowd. He would walk up to an old woman selling banana and groundnut, buy some and share some among the crowd. As the chanting of Onwaa rented the air, his supporters would run after him and for about an hour there would be traffic jam.

Ngige, however, does not have any song in particular that he sings during his campaign rallies. Rather, the crowd would sing the songs and he would chorus and then try some few dance steps.

However, a common song that the crowd sings is "it is your good work that you will be remembered for. It is your good work to the people that matters and not silver and gold. Your good work would be a blessing to you."

After the rally, a Catholic Priest, Anglican Pastor or an Evangelist of the Pentecostal Church would say the closing prayers and bless the crowd.

Architect Mike Nwafor of the African Liberation Party (ALP) is a born-again Christian. He sees the 2010 in Anambra as a year of jubilee. Nwafor is a good preacher and has always urged Anambra people to seek the face of God in the 2010 election. "Anambra has this year as a year of jubilation, God is visiting Anambra State this year and we must prepare ourselves to receiving him. God has a purpose for our state and he is using me as an instrument for that purpose," he said.

Another Evangelist is Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP). Ukachukwu has held several crusades and Christian rallies with notable leaders of the Pentecostal churches. Naturally his campaign rallies are more like religious gatherings blended with politics and his crowd of supporters would watch with rapped attention as he carries out what one of his supporters described as "political evangelisation."

Ichie Mike Ejezie of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) is a businessman and sees Anambra State as a large market that needs to be developed. "If we build Anambra State, our people would be empowered. This over-dependency on monthly allocation is not good, but we have all it takes to transform Anambra State," he preached. Ejezie has a lot of businessmen that believe in his ideas and he has always held think-thanks with them on his election campaigns.

While these candidates take Aambra State by the storm, the roadside tailors are having a field day. The expected lull in their shops after Christmas and New Year seasons has not been witnessed due to the campaign dresses worn by party members and supporters.

Tailors exhibit the campaign dresses of the governorship candidates. Similarly, the artists and printers have been smiling to the banks as candidates continue to print T-shirts, faze caps, billboards and banners.

Most outstanding, however, is that bookmakers have been proved wrong on the apprehension that 2010 election in Anambra would be bloody. So far, there has not been that picture of bloodshed or supporters of candidates clashing at rallies or by the roads. They are ironically seen at drinking bars exchanging pleasantries and sharing experiences.

Even the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, in a meeting in Awka congratulated the political parties and their candidates on such display of sportsmanship. Many, however, hope that the remaining days to the election would not be days of long knives.