Pro-Jonathan group, TAN, refuse to pay rented crowd for its rally

The Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, TAN, a group passionately campaigning for a second term for Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan, has been hit by allegation of fraud, with some members of the group accusing it of staging a crowd in support of the president and refusing to pay them as agreed.

Much of the crowd at the event was rented, some aggrieved members of the group have told Premium Times.

The politicians, who are members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Kano State, and 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.

The aggrieved agents now have a pile of debt to settle and some of them who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES say 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, told PREMIUM TIMES 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.

The arrangement, according to Mr. Lawan, was that 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.

Read more