The rented crowd which thronged President Goodluck Jonathan’s formal declaration of his re-election bid on Tuesday night held officials of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) including the main financier, Ifeanyi Ubah hostage for close to four hours for failing to pay them the money promised them for coming to the event.
Trouble began when the hired supporters demanded that they be paid in full for the three days they spent in Abuja. The rented crowd protested that the N40,000 agreed to be paid per head for the four nights they were to stay was not honoured.
THISDAY was told by one of the aggrieved supporters at the Ogude Street office of TAN that they were angry and would not vacate TAN’s office until they were paid in full the agreed sum.
According to the protester, who is a lady, “We came from various part of the country, some of us were promised N40,000, depending on which part of the country you came from. I came from Nnewi in Anambra State and it was agreed that we should be paid N40,000 but they are giving us N5,000 per head and we are rejecting it, as it was not part of our agreement.”
Continuing, she disclosed that Ubah had directed that the money be increased up to N10,000, but that was still unacceptable to them as it ran short of the settled sum.
Another one from North West told DailyPost that this was not the first time they were tricked by TAN, adding that “we suffered the same thing when they came to our side (North West) for the zonal rally.
“Some of us had refused to come when they were mobilizing us for this one but they assuaged our fears by assuring us that they would compensate us for the disappointment we suffered last time. Now look at us now. We will not leave here until they settle us,” he added
But when contacted by the newspaper, TAN’s Director of Communications, Udenta Udenta denied that they were held hostage by aggrieved supporters, asserting that the noise emanating from the Ogude Street office was a sort of carnival which followed President Jonathan’s successful declaration of intent to run in 2015.
He further spoke to THISDAY that “I am not aware of any money promised to any supporter. I am in my house relaxing after a successful outing.”
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