Their TV advert campaigns are always on point, Kudos to them on that. But then as things in Nigeria go, you get to hear of skeletons in the cupboard as Premium Times reports below:
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.
The Kano event held Saturday, September 27. As with the
previous five regional rallies, the event was attended by senior officials of
the federal government, and thousands of supporters.
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.
The story changed once they arrived at the venue, he told
PREMIUM TIMES.
“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.
He said 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.
“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.
Mr. Lawan said he managed to escape while two of his guards
were injured in the fray that followed.
Students in the state, who were also asked to put up a
showing at the event, were treated the same way, he said.
Another agent, Bello Dan Alkarya, also told PREMIUM TIMES
that he was asked to bring in women and youth to the venue and would be given
N500 naira for each of them.
Mr. Alkarya said he did, but unlike Mr. Lawan, he was
short-changed as only N300 was paid for each person transported to the rally
venue.
TAN has no official representation in Kano, PREMIUM TIMES
understands. Our correspondent, who made findings in Kano, was told 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.
“In fact, the only person who holds everything is the owner
of the group, Ifeanyi Uba. He is the one who directed one Jibrin to make sure
that they get some people to bring in women and youth. Now you can see that
there is a problem in the whole thing,” the man said.
TAN’s Director of Communication and Strategy, Udenta Udenta,
told PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview on Saturday that the association
was not aware of the issue and could not have been involved in such an
arrangement.
“Kano rally was our last rally. The response of Nigerians to
our objective and rallies was spontaneous and they are full of passion and
conviction. From the South East rally to the North West, that has been the
trend.
“However, stakeholders, including those contesting
elections, can mobilize people to come to the rallies. It is not like TAN is
doing the entire mobilization. It is like a market place. TAN only set up a
platform to accommodate various interests. Therefore, whoever made the
accusation (you are talking about) should be clear on it; he should state
clearly who is responsible, when the agreement was reached, date and if not,
such a story should be dismissed.”
Mr. Lawan said he and others affected have decided to reach
out to the media, the PDP leadership and the police.
“Till now those in charge of the mobilisation and payment of
transport fares and feeding stipends are nowhere to be found or contacted,” he
said. “It’s indeed a pity to see how things are being organised by TAN
Northwest (Kano). Please PDP, GDG and TAN members, come to my aid, I am
currently under pressure and threatened by angry PDP youths to pay them their
stipends.”
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.
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