As the general elections get closer with politics getting hotter, and everybody queuing up for it, politicians as usual, are busy mobilising support towards achieving their aims of getting elected into offices.

Headquarters of political parties, especially the major ones, have suddenly come alive with activities. At the national secretariats of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) located at Zone 5, Wuse, Abuja; All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) at the Central Business District, and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), at Zone 6, Wuse, political tempo has picked up.

Since the news that President Goodluck Jonathan was planning to contest the presidential election, various groups have emerged drumming up support for him, and in the process organisers have had to organise rallies, which involve crowd hiring.

Hardly a day passes now in any of these major political parties headquarters that rallies are not organised. What has become obvious is the trend in the hiring of crowd by organisers of these rallies. It is very easy, however, for a discerning mind to know that the youths involved in the rallies are rented crowd.

At one of such rallies to the PDP office last week to protest the recently concluded conduct of local government election in Imo State, there was no doubt that the youths carrying placards were hired. As a cursory look at the boys indicated that they were mainly boys from the northern part of the country. They were not only displaying the placards given to them upside down, many of them could not even read what was written on them.

CityFile interviewed some of the youths and their explanations were instructive, a sign of the hard and harsh economic times. Bala, a young boy of about 18 years wearing a white singlet sighted dancing ecstatically, said when asked how he came to be part of the demonstration “I was paid to come here and since I was not doing anything, I decided to join them.”

Bala, when asked how much he was paid, revealed “I was promised N500, and before coming I was given N200 with a promise to be paid the balance later,” but admitted that it was not his first outing, saying “I had taken part in such demonstration before, like some of my colleagues here. It is not new and everybody does it”.

John, another youth in the crowd would not disclose his age or his state but in his middle-age, also admitted he had taken part in similar demonstrations, explaining “I had done this before. We have somebody who links us anytime there is a demonstration to be done. On most occasions, we were paid in full before going out, but in other times we are settled after, depending on when our coordinator was paid”.

John would not disclose how much he was paid for the particular demonstration last week, but noted that, “the payment depends on how rich the people organising the demonstration are, but sometimes I was paid N1000”.

However, CityFile was able to locate one of those behind the rallies organisation, who would not disclose his name, but explained “it is part of survival, you know those who want to protest cannot bring down their own people from their states and to make up for it, they contact their kinsmen who in turn contact some of us”.

Kobojunkie:

lol  . . . . Is this denial or what?

That their was a curfew and soldiers did kill in some areas, should now be interpreted to mean that all killings that took place during that time, in all areas of the country were done by soldiers, and it had to be IBB?

WOW

invisible!:

This is a man that took us on a merry-go-round for 8 blessed years and dropped us from where he picked us up after stripping us of all resources. This is a man who caused all the problems we are facing today. He killed the refineries by refusing to bring out money fo the turn around maintenance, killed Nepa by refusing to modernize its operations. He wanted oil money and when he made enough, he stepped aside, maybe he is going broke again and wants to stuff his dirty pockets once more.

Why are we so cursed as a nation?

paddy_lo:

any question u need to ask?. . go ahead

paddy_lo:

There was no reason for the Naira to exchange 1 - 1 with the dollar in the first place

It was an artificially strong Naira,that was backed by no real productive base

It only encouraged imports of all kinds of nonsense into Nigeria

The Naira today is where it should be. . .

go and check out the exchange rates of countries like Japan,Turkey and Indonesia

A weak currency encourages,industrialization and manufacturing of goods in the home country
because imports are more expensive. . .but when u export u get more money for your exports

I dont want the naira to ever get below N120 - $1

stillwater:

You think it's everyone that sabi to ride bicycle? See his hippopotamus mouth like bike. *rolls eyes*

Kobojunkie:

a what? Riding bike or moped on lagos roads? Now you are just asking them to commit suicide . . . ROFLMAO!!

violent:

and why is the President being addressed as Mr Jonathan?