The
Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) group, that supports and
promotes a second term for Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan, has
been hit by allegation of fraud, as some members of the group accused it
of staging a crowd in support of the president and refusing to pay them
as agreed.
Reportedly,
TAN has conducted regional rallies in support of Mr. Jonathan since
August, with the last of its six conventions held in Kano, for the
northwest, which comprises Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi,
Zamfara, and Kaduna States.
On September
27, the group held rally in Kano, the event was attended by senior
officials of the federal government, and thousands of supporters.
According to Premium Times, much of the crowd at the event was rented as some aggrieved members of the group revealed.
Some members
of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano State, who were
drafted to be part of the TAN rally, have narrated how they were asked
to rent a crowd for the president for an agreed fee, only to be left
stranded without money to compensate hundreds of youth and women hired
for the rally.
The
matter is threatening to tear the support organization apart with the
aggrieved members threatening to seek redress and to expose the sham
they claim was on parade at the event.
As
Premium Times reports, the aggrieved agents now have a pile of debt to
settle and they do not know who to talk to about the money they spent in
bringing in supporters.
One
of the agents, Ibrahim Lawan, who said he is the Secretary of the PDP
Youth Awareness Initiative, Kano, said that he was instructed to bring
in 500 youth and women and to hire buses that will transport them to the
venue of the rally in Kano city.
According
to Mr. Lawan, each participant would be paid N500 on arrival, and N2,
000 for each bus. Those contracted to rent the crowd hired at least 50
busloads of supporters, he said.
However, when they arrived at the venue, everything went otherwise. “But
to my utmost surprise and confusion, as we entered the venue we tried
to locate the organizers but we could not see them. When I called them
they said I should be patient as they would settle everything after the
event. But almost immediately, we realized that the whole thing is a
scam because nobody was talking to us again,” Mr. Lawan said.
According
to him, they were left to source money and settle some of the youth who
became restive and attacked them and their personal vehicles, and
seized their belongings, including phones. Mr. Lawan said he managed to
escape while two of his guards were injured in the fray that followed.
“This
left us in rancour with over 600 angry youths who went wild due to
frustrations of spending lots of hours, no food or water and also no
available transportation back to their various destinations,” he said.
Another
agent, Bello Dan Alkarya, who reportedly spoke with Premium Times, said
he was asked to bring in women and youth to the venue and would be
given N500 naira for each of them. However, he was short-changed and
only N300 was paid for each person transported to the rally venue.
Premium
Times reports that TAN has no official representation in Kano, the
group has only two resource persons who are responsible for the entire
northwest.
One
of the officials, who agreed to speak, but on the condition his
identity be protected, said he had received several complaints of people
short-changed by the group after the event.
“I
simply told them I am not an insider into the activities of TAN because
I don’t know much about them. We are only two of us in the whole of
North West Region and we don’t have any office. The only way I get to
them is when they call me, I don’t know anything about them,”he said.
TAN’s
Director of Communication and Strategy, Udenta Udenta, in a telephone
interview on Saturday said that the association was not aware of the
issue and could not have been involved in such an arrangement.
Mr. Lawan said he and others affected have decided to reach out to the media, the PDP leadership and the police.
TAN
has been at the centre of controversy before. During its earlier
rallies, the group staged the events at the peak of the Ebola outbreak
in Nigeria defying complaints and warnings from Nigerians about the
possibility of helping to spread the deadly virus.
0 comments:
Post a Comment