It Is Just A Rented Crowd, Kwankwaso Residence Had Only 5,000, I Can Arrange This For You"

Kano State Commissioner for Information Ibrahim Abdullah has dismissed the large crowds that gathered at rallies welcoming former NNPP leader Rabiu Kwankwaso and Labour Party’s Peter Obi to the ADC in Kano, describing them as “a rented crowd” that should not be mistaken for genuine political support. He made the claim during a live interview on Channels Television, sparking a heated exchange with the studio anchor.

He argued that Kano’s enormous population makes it relatively straightforward to mobilise massive crowds through a well-resourced mobilisation committee, and that crowd size alone is not a reliable indicator of electoral strength or genuine political loyalty. He maintained that the APC’s own political machinery, built around the governor’s close relationships with party heavyweights, is far more deeply rooted than any rally figure suggests.

According to Abdullah, the actual size of people who attended the gathering at the residence of Dr. Rabi Musa Kwankwaso was far smaller than reported and could not have accommodated more than 5,000 people, adding that the presence of high-profile guests like Peter Obi and Dikko Radda was what drew attention rather than genuine grassroots support for the ADC.

He said: “This is not only a political hypothesis. Somebody may be driven by sentiment of what they have seen. The crowd you have witnessed — it is just an arranged crowd. If you come to Kano, I can arrange this kind of crowd for you. If you tell me and you provide the resources, I can arrange this kind of people for you. It is just a matter of mobilising people. Kano is a place where the population size is very big. If you want one million people at a time, you can mobilise them. It depends on the strategy you deploy. So these are all rented crowds. Look at the heavyweight names that were in Kano — the likes of Peter Obi, Dikko Radda, and others. They were already in Kano, but look at the only crowd they were able to pull. It was just within the premises of the residence of Dr. Rabi Musa Kwankwaso and it could not in any way contain more than 5,000 people. So this is just a small size of people….See More