Dear All:
We wish to thank Stanley Okechukwu Chira (alia Oderaigbo of Guangzhou, China) - the original fortuitous instigator of this Zik Project, who out-of-nowhere displayed a shocking but dated picture of a headless statue of Zik standing next to yours truly - for once again bringing us news from the South East Governors' Forum about continuing and future support of this project. The statement credited to "The Senior Special Assistant to Gov. Obi on Communication, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubabukoh" ends with the reassuring statement:
QUOTE
Ubabukoh asureed (sic) that the Governors of the South-East will continue to respect their past heroes by doing everything possible for their immotalisation (sic).
UNQUOTE
That line alone assuages to a lot of extent the tissue of disinformation and outright - and sometimes comical - lies against the humble persons of Ms. Azuoma Anugom, Dr. Valentine Ojo, Dr. Okenwa Nwosu, and my humble self, Mazi Bolaji nwa Aluko, that went before it. The other pledgers and donors will also be happy about the amount of attention being brought to bear on this particular subject, noting that this might be the fourth or fifth media focus on the matter in the past three or four days.
Despite the negative spin, we shall not be deterred over this Zik Project, and we shall do everything possible to parry the disinformation, and get all the stakeholders to work with us. The governor Peter Obi will certainly be properly advised directly, as well as his aides. After all, no one expects to just wake up and show up at Inisi Onira or DMGS roundabout with hoes, cutlass and paint in hand.
So, kindly let the donations continue. The total pledges now stand at $10,500 and almost 90 pledgers. Having exceeded the original N1 million pledge mark and revised $10,000 target, the next target is 100 pledgers - we are just 10 to go! Who knows - we might then stop all pledges for a while to concentrate on redemption - who knows? [We still have the target of N1 million redemption by November 1.]
So kindly pledge now - and avoid the rush! :-) More importantly, redeem your pledge - and avoid the cynicism of one Cornelius (Didymus?) who wrote, quite amusingly, that:
QUOTE
Having said that, out of over 10,000 dollars that has been pledged for this venturr (sic), only about 900 dollars has been stated to have been collected. It will take about 8 years to collect all of that and even at that, collectors will have to send out 3,000 reminder e-mails to the dead beat pledgees. and if HEN and TONY Egbe pledged a dime, it will take for ever and they still will not buldge. The rest of them will simply find 2 million reasons to not have paid theirs and half of them will demand 30,000 signatories to protect the 1 dollar they pledged. That's just the way it is with the African
UNQUOTE
Tony Egbe I know, but looking through the list of pledgers, I did not wish to speculate who HEN might be - but we must work hard to beat Cornelius' skepticism - or is it cynicism?
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
PS: The ploy by Stanley Chira to set ndi-Imo against ndi-Anambra will not work. Read him - again:
QUOTE
Cornel ,i think it may be ok in Imo state ,i mean OHAKIM may use people to exort 2,000 naira each from over 200,000 applicants for 12,000 unexisting jobs,and i am sure nobody will find fault with it.
But this is ANAMBARA state ,people are using DR NNAMDI AZIKIWE to raise fraudlent money ,they are raising fund based on headless ZIK which has been restored over 3 years ago.
SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO somebody warned them to check first the status of the statue but they want the money ,they start fund raiser ,which means if the state kept mute after they may have collected the fund [this solicitations appeared on some Nigerian Newspaper] ,which job will they claim they did ?. Well it is fraud and fraudlent people are liable to face prosecution.
UNQUOTE
He really appears to be a "disconnected Igbo Diaspora elite" in far away China - with apologies to Godson nwa Offoaro.
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On Wed 09/01/10 7:48 PM , Oderaigbo odera.igbo@... sent:
| STOP USING ZIK’S NAME FOR FRAUD â€" OBI’S AIDE 
The Senior Special Assistant to Gov. Obi on Communication, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubabukoh has appealed to Nigerians to treat the name of Zik with reverence and stop using it to extort money from people. Mr Ubabukoh was reacting to the news which appeared in some papers and is currently circulating on the INTERNET where some Nigerians led and supported by one Dr. Mobolaji Aluko, Ojo Valentine, Okenwa Nwosu, Azuma Anugwom among others are said to be soliciting money from the public and donating money to restore what they called the decapitated Zik’s statue in front of his House in Onitsha. Ubabukoh who regretted the level some people have sunk in the name of making money said that the statue in question was intact and appealed to the public to beware and vigilant . He said that the Statue was decapitated when different gangs existed in Onitsha, but that with the restoration of peace in the town under Obi, that all the structures the gangs destroyed have all been replaced. On the Statue, he said: “The decapitated statue was since restored in 2007 and is standing even as I speak.†On the next step the Government would take, Ubabukoh said: “first of all, we are appealing to our people not to fall victims of scam by some unscrupulous Nigerians. This is our major concern especially against the fact that some people have already donated money to them. Next, we cannot rule out prosecuting those people for what is clearly a well orchestrated 419 and criminal false information.†Ubabukoh regretted that some of those doing this are those who pretend to be concerned with the growth and development of the State. He said that they were not in a position of power and yet they were doing havoc to the society and asked rhetorically what those tribe of men would do when entrusted with real power. Ubabukoh asureed that the Governors of the South-East will continue to respect their past heroes by doing everything possible for their immotalisation. |
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