Rapper Ruggedman recently shared a bitter experience he had recently with an Abuja-based promoter named Ejiro Okhipwo. Read below as Part 1. Now it's the turn of Abuja promoter, Ejiro Okhipwo. He shared his own side of the story. Read his statement below as Part 2. After the cut.....
PART 1
Rapper Ruggedman shares a bitter experience he had recently with an Abuja-based promoter named Ejiro Okhipwo. Read below... I do not know why i always want to help out. I guess its my nature but it gives room for a ot of people to take advantage and repay my good with evil. It has happened once too many and i am tired of it and this Ejiro Okhipwo will not go unexposed for the fraudster/trickster that he is.
He is the promoter of the so called most beautiful girl pageant in Abuja,so i was told when i met him a few months ago while in the middle of a messed up promoters event,i guess they know each other smh. We became friends and i agreed to make an appearance at his October 26th event in Abuja for an honourarium of 100k penre, all for promoting my artist o. Na there i enter one chance.
1. He delayed till the Friday
before his event to get in touch with me and pleaded to pay 50k into my
account to balance off as soon as we landed Abuja. As a good person i
agreed,since i had already given my word.
2. By 3.30pm no bank alert and i thought he was trying to wait till 4pm when banks would have closed to say "we have paid the money,but i guess they did not post it in time thats why you haven't gotten the alert". So i called and asked that the person with the cash should be waiting for us at the airport.
Thinking i was dealing with a rational human being,i decided to head to Abuja so that it wont be said that i refused to come because of the lean change he did not send.
LANDED ABUJA 8:30PM
and no cash at the airport,no Ejiro Okhipwo either. We proceeded to the
hotel where we stayed until the next day. No welfare, i had to take care
of everything from my pocket o (make hungry no kill us where we dey
wait for useless people in Jesus name...).
SATURDAY 5:00PM
still no word or the presence of Ejiro Okhipwo but someone called fuja
who works for him brought two packs into my room. On opening it i found
some cold,milkless,sugarless oatmeal. The second pack contained boiled
yam,under friend plantain under baked beans LWKMD. I wondered if it was
breakfast,lunch or both....at 5PM O.
The event was slated to start by 7pm and by 6pm
i sent Ejiro Okhipwo a BB message that i will not leave the hotel room
if he doesnt pay what was agreed because i was already suspecting foul
play. No response and we lounged till the next day.
SUNDAY: hotel management informs us that Ejiro Okhipwo said everyone should check out of the hotel by 12noon.
We called him only for him to send me txt messages that "i am heartless
for not coming to his show and will fuck me up" LMAO!!!
A show that he did not pay the lean honourarium "we" agreed to? The deal was to pay before i leave Lagos,i even managed to get to Abuja and he did not have the courtesy to come see us? Even if he did not have the money to pay, i have done loads of free shows for small time promoters like him. His would not have killed me.Now here he was threatening to fuck me up. I laughed so hard.
A few people i know called him and he kept bragging and threatening (over the phone) that he will deal with me and fuck me up.
Finally: Mr Ejiro Okhipwo i have been in Abuja since then
and i have not seen you let alone getting fucked up by you (if i hear).
I have even had enough time to apply for and get visas for me and my artist and yet we havent seen you.
Desmond,your PAs friend was involved in an accident and
suffered internal bleeding while driving artists who came for your event
and when you were told all you said was "its none of your business".
God will forgive you.
The girls you brought from Lagos who worked for you and you
ran off without paying them or giving them transport fare to go back
will never forgive you.
The babe (name witheld) you brought from Lagos and you
abandoned her in the hotel (because she no give you do) will never
forgive you.
Mr Ejiro Okhipwo of most beautiful girl in abuja,so many
people speak ill of you and i pray to God that you change your evil
ways. I wont say its because you are short (short man devil) because i
know a lot of great short men. I guess you think you are smart and can
use and abandon people,but you are far from smart. Your days are
numbered and karma is a bitch.
You keep saying commissioners are your friends,the IG is your friend. So? They are not above the law and will not stoop as low as to support your stupid antics. The same IG that is against crime? He will probably end up locking you up.
I wrote this so people and especially fellow artists should
beware of the moronic abuja entertainment fraudster called Ejiro
Okhipwo. If you must work with him (at your own risk) COLLECT ALL YOUR
MONEY and RETURN TICKETS before you fly to Abuja,because you might not
see him after the event and don't be surprised if he threatens to fuck
you up lol!!!
PART 2
First of all, I'm embarrassed that this man, Ruggedman, could bring himself so low by exposing his own shame publicly in the media. I'm embarrassed because no artiste could have done what this guy did to us even when we felt we were doing him a big favour. Look, I have organized several editions of this event, and different artistes have graced our event, but we have never been swindled before. This is our first experience, and unfortunately, it's an artiste who has lost audience appeal that did this to us. I had wanted to let this pass, but since he has gone to humiliate himself in the media, I will follow this up. I'm consulting with my lawyer at the moment, and we may be suing ruggedman for defamation of character, and his failure to heed to our earlier agreement with him.
It's amazing the way Ruggedman misbehaved. As a supposed respected elder in the business of entertainment, we never expected that from him. No wonder he had a fight with his boy, 9ice who became bigger and better than him in the music game.
Now my story:
Quite frankly, what we do when we
are bringing an artiste to our show is to pay the person upfront, you give us
your most convenient time to travel, and we book your return ticket. It's
laughable and extremely ridiculous that Ruggedman is claiming we were to pay
him honorarium of N100,000. I couldn't have paid him N100, 000 when he was the
one who begged us for the show. He said he wanted an award to get himself
acquainted with his Abuja fans. This is not what we would have loved to say in
the public domain, if not that he has gone public, because we respect all the
artistes we deal with, no matter the status. Having called me personally to beg
for the award, we told him, look, we will appreciate your appearance after our
event as we did not put you in our budget earlier. We then booked for his
flight, we sent him the tickets reference number and he came into Abuja on
Friday, the 25th of October, 2013 and was picked up from the airport without
delays. He was also checked into a classic hotel with a four star value as
agreed, with food and drinks on ground for him to enjoy a day before the event.
Ruggedman refused to
pick up his calls: He had over 30 missed calls from us.
Unfortunately for the MBGA organizers,
Ruggedman refused to pick up calls placed to him. In fact, He went ahead to
even show some other artistes that were in the hotel with him , that "see, see, see, the organizers
of the event are calling me, but I will not pick, I will make them go through
hell since they have refused to see me since yesterday that I arrived’’ How
could he have made such claims. Who picked him up from the airport then? The
pack of lies is clearly childish and pointless.
Our Bewilderment
We wondered at the change of
agreement and his refusal to pick up calls. The question was why was our own
Ruggedman disgracing himself over N50, 000 that we agreed to pay him after the
event? At list, we expected him to pick up his calls and give us his new terms,
but he never did. Information got to us that he was to have a meeting with some
people that time over his album, the reason he used our show to transport
himself to Abuja. We never believed that in the first place, but it got clearer
to me the next day, when this guy showed no remorse towards his actions. Funny
enough, he was waiting for his return ticket, and his honorarium, and we kept
wondering ‘’ what are we honouring him for?’’. Appreciating him for eating our
food, drinking our bear, wasting our ticket money, time and energy? Appreciating
him for rudely and unapologetically denying that we brought him into Abuja,
appreciating him for ignoring over 30 missed calls? These were the series of
questions begging for answers. Ruggedman, even at that, had the guts to take
our case to the media; the world is very funny.
Why only Ruggedman? Why
not other artistes?
If we can invite all the
Nollywood acts, artistes and comedians like him, why should we not want to pay
him a little amount of N50, 000 only?
His unbearable attitude
and its effect on his career
With an apology, I want to say
that Ruggedman is really not a good role model, and that has resulted to his poor
performance over time. I think the name rugged is influencing his life and his
career. He needs to redefine his name, and what he represents as an artiste.
You cannot continue to fight people who try to make you relevant as an
entertainer. It's sad.
Why did we invite
Ruggedman and not an A-list artiste?
We knew this guy was not an A-List artist, yet
we went ahead to invite him to be awarded, Just to have him get on track. He
attested to the fact that we were creating visibility for him, but we were
shocked at what we received from him; insults, by putting up a very sad news
just to tarnish the good name and record of MBGA event. We won't just let this pass. We will ask some
legal questions on why he should come out to castigate us without reasons. We are
very sorry for him, because he is going to pay the MBGA for all damages he had
caused the event.
Why we abandoned him in
the hotel after the event
We admit that we abandoned him at
the hotel in Abuja after the event because he refused to perform his own part
of the gentlemen agreement we had. would it have been nice to pay him even when
he refused to pick up our calls to perform at the show? Had he performed at the
show and we refused to pay him, then his media query would have been a little
reasonable. How would he have expected the MBGA to pay for his fare back to
Lagos? He is a very nonsensical element and should be treated as such. This
same Ruggedman stayed in that same hotel on our bills from Friday, a day before
the event till Monday; that is two days after the event. So, we told the hotel
to check him out once its 12noon on Monday, the 28th of October 2013. What kind
human being is he? How could he be
talking about God, when God is already angry with him? This God don suffer for
people mouth jor.
Our legal war!
Rugged man will hear from us very
soon. Our lawyers will serve him for damages and he will pay from his
nose. It’s funny and unfortunate that he
can't even afford to answer a case at a competent court of law. I think he
needs some help, but he is yet to realize that. How can an artiste be fighting
all through his career? Is that supposed to be his own calling?
Who threatened who?
I did not threaten him, nobody
did that, instead, he was using different people to threaten us. I think the
guy wants to use us to promote his album, but we won't let his gimmicks
distract us, as we will continue to pull great events for Abuja people."
Our appeal
We sincerely appeal to all our
fans to remain calm and focused, believing that we have better things for them.
Everybody is a partner in what we do. We do not have any police bosses as
claimed by ruggedman. He just deleted me from his Blackberry contact; else, I
would have copied all the chats I had with him for you. He did that purposely
to conceal our gentleman agreement.
Whoever
feels so concern can call me on 08034523698
to hear more.
I Thank you.
Mr. Ejiro,
Organizer, MBGA.
No comments:
Post a Comment