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.
Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria
rally in Port Harcourt
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.
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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