The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of renting crowd from Niger Republic to attend the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign rally in Kano State on Thursday.
The main opposition party made this known in a statement through its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, while reacting to the mammoth crowd that turned out for the APC rally.
Recall that The Herald had reported how the governors of Zinder and Maradi, the second and third largest cities in Niger Republic, turned out for the event.
The party accused the president and the APC of renting crowd from the neighbouring West African nation to create a false impression about Buhari’s popularity.
The statement read, “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says President Muhammadu Buhari should stop fixating over the non-existent five million votes that was promised him by the Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State as such is completely illusionary.
Watch video of the crowd:
This is Kano State!#PMBinKano #PMB4Plus4 pic.twitter.com/PoiB1vFfbu
— APC Nigeria Support (@APCNigeria) January 31, 2019
“The party holds that if indeed President Buhari is committed to free and fair polls as he claims, he ought to have cautioned Gov Ganduje to stop making vain promises because the total numbers of voters registered in Kano is not more than 5.5 million.
“This promise is being made even in the scenario where President Buhari has since lost the support of the people of Kano state following his failure to fulfill even the littlest of the litany of promises he made to them during the 2015 campaigns.
“The PDP says President Buhari must have received a shock of his life when he realized that his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), had to rent a crowd from neighboring Niger Republic to populate his rally in Kano on Thursday after the planners could not mobilize enough supporters from Kano to attend.
“Nigerians watched in amusement as two state governors and a traditional ruler from Niger Republic, who were contracted to hire and ferry in the aliens, struggled for space with APC leaders at the rally.
“They saw how the crowd, with strange and conflicting colours, could not connect to calls and speeches by APC leaders, but remained uncoordinated and had to be instructed and prodded to respond at the rally.
“The world now knows how President Buhari garnered his votes in Kano in 2015 and on what strength his party has been boasting of five million votes in the 2019 elections.
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“Now that it is clear to all, including Mr. President, that he has lost the support of the people of Kano state, we urge the Buhari Presidency and the APC to wake up to the reality and stop deceiving themselves as there is no way foreigners can be allowed to participate in our elections, as they probably did for President Buhari in 2015.
“Since it is no longer in contention that President Buhari cannot garner up to one million genuine votes in Kano, the PDP cautions the APC and their agents in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to end their rigging plans in the state, as such will be resisted by the people.”
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