Hired Crowd Turns Against Aspirant while declaring for Governorship

Thousands of people hired by former Niger Delta Affairs Minister, Peter Godsday Orubebe, turned against him, last Thursday, when he failed to pay them.

Sources said Orubebe, who had hired the crowd from across Delta State, is a candidate for the governorship of the state.

“The same people he hired to show support for him staged a mass protest against him because he did not meet his promise to pay them,” said one source.

The protesters reportedly gathered at Mr. Orubebe’s campaign office shortly after the former minister’s declaration in Asaba, the capital of Delta State. Mr. Orubebe has long eyed the governorship seat in Delta State, and has formally announced his intention to run in 2015. 

“Elder Orubebe sent his people to go all over the state and rent crowds of people, but in the end he did not pay the sum of N200 to N500 that his people promised to pay the crowd he rented from every nook and cranny of the state,” said a spokesman for a civil rights group based in Delta. The source added that people like Mr. Orubebe represented the politics of voter inducement that has caused a lot of moral disruption and led to democratic woes in the state and Nigeria at large. 

The visibly angry protesters, who included women, men and the youths, rained curses on Mr. Orubebe, describing him as fraudster who is not fit to govern the state. They also accused him of looting funds during his tenure as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs. 

“Why can’t he pay us common two hundred naira that he said he will pay?” one of the protesters stated, admitting that he was recruited from Ogwashi Uku to pose as a supporter of the former minister.