Chapter Two: Boys and Ballots
The office was smaller than he expected. A cracked window overlooked a street littered with election posters that still clung to walls like forgotten promises. The paint on the walls peeled like old truth, and the only working fan in the room made a sound like a goat choking on a bone.
Abdul Ghaffar dropped his worn-out laptop bag on the floor and stood in the middle of the room, absorbing the moment. He was officially an Assembly Member now. The youngest in the district. The first independent mind in a space soaked in compromise.
He had thought the victory would come with some kind of honor—at least a handshake from the District Chief Executive, or a call from the regional party chairman. But no one came. The secretary, a woman in her mid-fifties with glasses too big for her face, barely looked up when he arrived.
"So… where's the team?" Abdul asked.
She blew air through her teeth and motioned vaguely. "Team? My dear, this is assembly, not parliament. You get two chairs and a file cabinet. You want a team, start recruiting volunteers."
And that was it. No welcome. No orientation. Not even a working printer.
His first few weeks were a blur of files missing, budgets delayed, and meeting invitations that somehow never reached him. One clerk even forgot his name and kept referring to him as "the boy who dey make noise online."
But Abdul didn't come to play. He attended every town hall meeting, took notes at sanitation inspections, and memorized the local bye-laws by heart. And when the first community issue landed on his desk—a broken footbridge that school children had been falling off for years—he grabbed it like a lifeline.
He didn't wait for approval. He called a few carpenter friends, posted a video explaining the situation, and organized a weekend volunteer rebuild. The video gained traction. In 48 hours, it had thirty thousand views. The next week, a local businessman donated materials. By the weekend, the bridge was fixed—without a single cedi from government coffers.
It was a small act, but it caused a political earthquake.
The following Monday, Abdul received a summons to the assembly committee. They accused him of "bypassing process," of "embarrassing leadership," and of "setting dangerous precedent."
He stood before a half-circle of old men who had held those seats for decades. Their faces looked like expired calendars—frozen in a time when speeches were more important than solutions.
"Honorable Ghaffar," one of them began, "what you did may have been well-intentioned, but this isn't a vigilante state. You must learn to wait for allocation."
"With all due respect," Abdul replied calmly, "if I had waited for allocation, a child would've died falling into that gully."
One of the older members rolled his eyes. "That's not the point. We have procedures."
"Yes," Abdul said, "procedures that protect the powerful and punish the poor."
The room froze. A few muttered. One man choked on his water. But he didn't stop.
"You're angry not because I acted. You're angry because I exposed that none of you did."
It was the day Abdul realized that his biggest enemies weren't across the aisle—they were seated next to him.
The weeks that followed were hostile. His office printer was suddenly removed "for repairs." Letters he submitted for approval were mysteriously "misfiled." His requests for constituency funds were "under review" for months. When he requested to speak at a press briefing, he was told the list was full—for the next six months.
But the people were watching.
In the markets, they called him "the bridge boy." Taxi drivers played his interview clips on WhatsApp. Hawkers who barely followed politics began asking him what he planned next.
With no budget and no support, he started filming weekly videos called "Ground Up with Ghaffar." He walked through neglected neighborhoods, interviewed locals, exposed failing schools, clogged gutters, leaking clinics. He wore plain clothes and asked raw questions. He didn't shout. He listened.
It made him dangerous.
Soon, the regional party leadership called him in. The chairman, a fat man with a gold wristwatch and suspiciously black hair, offered him a seat and a bottle of malt.
"You've got something," the chairman said. "Raw energy. You talk well. The boys like you."
Abdul raised an eyebrow. "Thank you?"
The chairman leaned forward. "You just need to soften your tone. Work more with the party. Stop attacking the system. We'll make you District Youth Coordinator. Good allowance. Party car. You know…"
Abdul smiled politely. "I appreciate the offer. But I didn't come to decorate the rot. I came to clean it."
The chairman laughed, but his eyes didn't.
"Be careful," he said, standing. "The system eats who it cannot absorb."
That night, Isaac called him.
"Ghaffar, the people love you, but the party no go sit down. You dey spoil their food. Just know say, the real campaign just start."
Abdul leaned against his window, staring at the blinking lights of the sleeping city. He was only an assemblyman. And yet, the machine had started to notice.
He exhaled and whispered to the darkness, "Let them come hungry. I came prepared to starve."
The street below was quiet, but in that silence, a movement had already begun to hum.