A Nigerian group has alleged that agents of the government paid $500 each to black Americans to stage a solidarity protest for President Muhammadu Buhari in the United States.

The chairman of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS), Professor Banji Akintoye, made the allegation in a statement by the group’s spokesman Maxwell Adeleye.

Akintoye’s group which consists of people from the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria will be protesting opposite the United Nations Headquarters in New York “to show before the world, the crimes against humanity, attacks on press freedom, free speech and other criminalities being aided by the Buhari led government of Nigeria.”

NINAS is also demanding the conduct of a regional referendum so that the indigenous people can decide on their nationhood.

Akintoye said “foreigners” were paid $500 each to counter his group’s protest.

Akintoye said top “Nigerian Government official and a popular Lagos journalist of currently hiring foreigners to masquerade as Pro-One Nigeria Protesters to counter NINAS in New York.”

He said their protest slated for Friday in New York “shall be historic, hence, the Nigerian government is jittery. The ring leader of government officials from Kwara State and a top Lagos journalist are now in New York to start hiring black people who will pretend as Nigerians to stage a Pro-Buhari and One Nigeria Protest to counter NINAS on Friday,” Akintoye said.

The Grand Finale of the NINAS Million-Man Freedom March holds on September 24, 2021, the day Buhari will be addressing the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The group leader urged “all the people of the South and Middle-Belt in United States and Canada, to troop out in their large number…as we demonstrate and expose before the world, the rape of our ancestral land and hijack of our assets and sovereignty by the Fulani-Controlled Nigerian Government.”

“The people make the Constitution. The sovereignty belongs to the people. Our own strenght lies in the hands of the people. Therefore, Our March shall be people centered. It shall be peaceful as usual,” Akintoye said.

(The Guardian)

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