A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Samuel Yohanna, has alleged that every political party hires crowds for rallies.
Yohanna disclosed this while fielding questions on the Channels Tv Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday.
Recall that attacks on the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’s supporters by sponsored thugs at its campaign rally in Kaduna State last week.
PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, condemned the attack and described it as undemocratic and against the peace accord all the political parties recently signed, while calling on all parties to call their supporters and members to order and to ensure that campaigns are free and fair.
Yohanna, a former Assistant Organising Secretary for the APC in Kaduna, also alleged that the PDP had failed to fulfill its part of the bargain with hired crowds, saying that it led to the disruption of the rally in Kaduna on October 17.
“There is no political party that does not hire crowds. It is just that the level each political party hires, sometimes 25 percent, sometimes 10 percent, sometimes 99 percent.
“When they (hired crowds) 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 an appearance fee because as far as we are concerned in the APC, PDP is no match to us. The 99% of the crowd you saw there that day, came there on an appearance fee. Whether the fee was paid after the day, I don’t know,” he said.