Nigeria’s celebrated On-Air-Personality, Chinedu Emmanual Ani, popularly known as Nedu Wazobia has addressed allegations leveled against him.
Addressing the fraud allegations circulating on social media, where a social media influencer, VeryDarkMan stated that the radio personality used his personal account to collect funds that were meant for educational support and scholarships for disadvantaged students in the diaspora.
The Chief Operating Officer of TalkingDrumz Management Agency, Sarah Williams Konha explained that the Social Enterprise company that approached Nedu Wazobia to use his platform to raise funds for disadvantaged students in the diaspora pulled out last minute, leaving him and his team to struggle to stay afloat.
At Canton Concourse, where the celebrity radio host held the press conference, Sarah Williams Konha whose Management Agency has been working with Nedu Wazobia for more than five years, stated that the company which is known to provide scholarships for students from countries where education is not adequate like, Africa and Asia, approached Nedu in December, 2023 to partner with him to raise funds to pay for scholarships for students from Nigeria.
Sarah Williams Konha said that Nedu connected the founder of the social enterprise to his management company and the partnership meeting was between the said company, Nedu and their management team.
“The agreement was that a charity event would be hosted to raise the funds which all parties agreed. In the course of the meetings, For publicity, events, and marketing to raise funds, the company agreed to provide sponsorship, while Mr Nedu will gather his fans and his people to make donations when we have hit a certain goal.
“Then the scholarships will be given to students. The target was to assist 1000 students in a space of two years. It will cost 10,000 pounds for each student. All parties agreed that we are going to have three events. One in Lagos, Abuja and London. The Lagos event would be the official launch of the initiative.
They mandated us to get an event planner and a Public Relations company to put together the cost of the venture. The budget was approved. The event planning company asked for a sixty per cent payment to commence the planning which was about 32 to 34 million naira.
“The money was paid and there are transaction proofs to back it up. There was N22 million that was supposed to cover the promotions before the events, during the events and after the events.
“A press conference was held to announce the initiative which is on the social media platform. I would like to make it clear that the account the donations were to be paid to was the social enterprise account. Mr Nedu never wanted to have access to the donations or for any money to be paid into his personal account.
She continued, saying their plan was that after the event, billboards would be put up around the cities asking for more donations before proceeding to do the Abuja arm of the event.
“This drive was made through Nedu’s Scholarship Foundation. These are on the Nedu Scholarship Foundation’s Instagram handle. We got calls from the partners that funds were trickling in but not as much as they expected. We explained that charity in Nigeria is not as robust as it is in the United Kingdom or America.
“That it is still a growing culture here. After a few days, they called back with concerns that the Social media was not on fire about their fundraising. We told them that since it’s charity and donations, it will take some time.
“The date slated for the Lagos fundraiser event was March 9, 2024, but on the 5th of March 2024, our management agency got an email stating that the partners will no longer be part of the event and so cannot continue with their support.
Four days before the event, we had sent out 200 box invites to prominent Nigerians.
“Mr Nedu wanted to cancel the event, but we transitioned management said he couldn’t cancel because people had already been invited. What we did was call the event planners and start adjusting the budget. We managed to hold the event.
“There were pledges and donations. After the event, the company started a conversation on how to resolve the issue when we were not making any headway,” she said
The said company petitioned the Nigerian police on June 26th, 2024. Nedu’s management agency was invited to dialogue with the police, after their investigations as them to settle with the company. Their initial demand was that we do a video to promote their brand.
“We agreed because we already have 600 students who have applied, if making a video would help us settle, why not? But they late came back and said they didn’t want a video. They want a refund of N40 million naira, which we said was impossible. The money was used for the event. Their team came to the event.
For the sake of clarity, Sarah Williams stated that she does not know where VeryDarkMan got his information from but will state that Mr Nedu did not commit any form of fraud or handle any of the funds.
“The money was paid to us, the project manager.”
She also explained that Nedu does not own the company TalkingDrumz. “TalkingDrumz does not manage only Nedu Wazobia, they manage other talents”
She also noted that Mr Nedu never paid music stars like Kcee and Timaya to make videos, they did that out of their close friendship with Mr Nedu.
Sarah Williams Konha further stated that the press conference became important when they noticed that the statements against Mr Nedu are now defamatory and for that, their lawyers will be taking action.
“TalkingDrumz Management lawyers will also be taking action because the information going around that someone committed fraud or mismanaged funds is damaging that we cannot turn another cheek, ” she said.
Responding to some of the questions directed to him, Nedu Wazobia stated that he was never fired from Honest Bunch. He stepped aside to allow the program to flourish since the attacks were directed at him.
the king of talk also explained that most of the allegations going around were mostly because he is too accessible and stated categorically that he will stop being Mr Nice Guy.
“I am the perfect example of ‘follow peace with all men’. My life is about adding value to people. I am all about helping those who need help. Those that know me, know me well.
This situation has taught me a lesson. They have succeeded in killing that nice part of Nedu. I will be a good man, but I won’t be a nice guy anymore. I was too accessible, but now I won’t be accessible anymore. I have been used and abused by people that I call friends. I am done. No more Mr. Nice Guy,” he said
