Despite fears that an unknown number of people might have been infected by the deadly Ebola virus in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the Transformation Ambassador of Nigeria, TAN, a group campaigning for the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan, said it would go ahead with its planned rally in Port Harcourt, the state capital on Saturday.
Both the presidency and the health ministry have failed to stop the group despite warning that such large gatherings could aid the spread of the virus that has so far killed six people in Nigeria.
The group’s Director of Media, Udenta Udenta, who disclosed this on Friday, said the arrangement for a successful rally where the people of South-South zone would urge the president to run in the February 2015 presidential election, had been concluded. “The rally will hold,”Mr. Udenta confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview Friday night. “The Ebola issue is being over-hyped. We have sanitised every location and there is no cause for alarm.”
The rally, which is billed to hold at the Liberation Stadium in Port Harcourt, is coming on the heels of the death of a medical doctor, Ikechukwu Enemuo who was infected by the virus as well as the isolation of over 100 others in the oil-rich state.