…says every political party hires crowds for rallies
A former Assistant Organising Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State, Samuel Yohanna, says the disruption of the presidential campaign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna by thugs was because the PDP failed to fulfill its part of the bargain with the crowd they hired.
Some unidentified thugs had on Monday disrupted the PDP rally in Kaduna State, beating the party supporters who had gathered at the Ranch Bees Stadium for the campaign of the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Abubakar had condemned the attack by the ‘sponsored’ thugs, describing it as undemocratic. He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call supporters of all political parties in order to forestall a recurrence.
“I have just received emergency reports of attacks on Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters by thugs sponsored to scuttle the ongoing PDP campaign rally in Kaduna State. This is undemocratic and against the Peace Accord all parties signed up for just a few weeks ago,” he tweeted.
“I urge President Muhammadu Buhari to call on all parties to call their supporters and members to order and to ensure that campaigns, just as with the elections themselves, are kept free, fair and safe.”
However, speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday, Yohanna said the disruption of the rally was self-inflicted. He said the APC had no involvement in the attack because the ruling party had no reason to be perturbed by the campaign.
“The violence there was self-inflicted. It was a disagreement they had among themselves where they hired some people to come there and the money they promised to pay them, they didn’t pay them exactly what they promised to pay them. And you know how these boys operate, it is the highest bidder, ‘money for hand, back for ground,'” he alleged.
“When they (hired crowd) found out that it was PDP’s usual way of deceit, they knew that this money was not going to come and the next thing is to vent their anger on innocent Nigerians that came there for appearance. Because as far as we are concerned in the APC, PDP is no match to us, and 99 percent of the crowd you saw there that day came there on appearance.”
When asked how certain he was that PDP hired a crowd for the campaign, Yohanna said there was no political party that does not hire crowds for rallies.
“We are thoroughbred politicians and we’ve been in this game for a very long time. We understand how this thing goes,” he responded.
“There is no political party that does not hire crowd. It is just a matter of the level each political party hires. Sometimes it’s 25 percent, sometimes 10 percent, sometimes 99 percent.”
