The on-air personality (OAP), Nedu, has refuted claims of fraud brought against him by VeryDarkMan (VDM), a social media critic.
VDM said in a recent video that a non-governmental organisation (NGO) who sought him for a collaboration was defrauded by the Nedu Scholarship Foundation (NDSCHF).
The foundation’s goal is to ensure that 1,000 disadvantaged Nigerian students have access to high-quality education by offering full scholarships (£10,000 per student) over a two-year period.
The social media critic said that the NGO had paid Nedu N60 million in advance for the initiative, which was expected to include well-known Nigerians contributing to the cause.
However, VDM said that after receiving the cash, the media personality ceased returning the NGO’s calls and neglected his responsibilities.
Sarah Williams Konha, the chief operating officer (COO) of Tokindrumz Management, the organisation in charge of the OAP, disclosed that the NGO had gotten in touch with them and paid the project’s advance payment during a press conference in Lagos on Thursday.
However, Sarah noted that the NGO cancelled the cooperation four days prior to the event, blaming insufficient funding and poor advertisement.
“We had slated March 9, for the launch of the initiative. On the 5th of March, Mr Jilian, who works for the platform we were doing this partnership with sent an email informing us that they would no longer be part of the event. They would no longer be providing the support they were supposed to provide and would be pulling out,” she said.
“… four days before the event, we had to inform the event planning company that we had a problem. Since our partners were not fulfilling their end of the bargain, we would not be able to pay them their balance of 40 percent. Then we had already paid them 60 percent, there is proof of transfers and everything necessary, but we needed them to figure out what they could do.”
Sarah said despite the internal differences, they went ahead with the fundraising events (scheduled in Lagos, Abuja, and London), making budget cuts due to the NGO’s withdrawal.
According to her, the Lagos event (January 2024) successfully raised N19 million in pledges and N4.1 million in direct donations, supported by celebrities such as Timaya.
She said after the event, they attempted to reconcile with the NGO, but both parties failed to reach an agreement.
“Mr Nedu was like should he cancel and I was like you cannot cancel. We have already gathered people, people are coming in for this event. We are going to go ahead and see how we are going to figure it out. So we informed them, they immediately went to work and started adjusting the budget,” Sarah said.
“In the emails that he had sent, he said and I quote ‘It would be prudent to refrain from using the remaining funds at this time. We understand that this decision may come as a disappointment considering the efforts you have towards the event. Please know that these decisions were not made lightly. Please go ahead to cut down your budget for the event and recover monies that you have spent from various people that you have given money to if possible’.”
Sarah revealed that they were invited by the police and provided all necessary evidence, including emails and proof of transfers.
She said the police investigated the matter and advised them to settle internally, stating that it was not a criminal issue.
“After the event, we came back to the drawing table with this team and said okay, we are not angry that you ditched us last minute and put the brand and his name at risk. We have handled the situation and thankfully, nobody knew there were internal issues,” she said.
“The event has come, prominent Nigerians came and we have been able to get pledges of around N18-N19 million, we have raised about N4 million. What would you do moving forward? Because we have outstanding bills to pay and we also have these pledges that we need to follow up on and move forward.
“We went back and forth, we could not agree. So the first thing we did was we had a contract with the event planners. We paid them the sum of N4 million naira which was after all the running around because it was not their fault. We had several meetings and conversations, and landowners got involved back and forth till we were not making any progress and they decided to write a petition to the Nigerian police.
“This petition was written on the 26th of June 2024. So they went to the police and petitioned them, so they invited us to come and discuss what the problem was. We honored the invitation and provided all the information and evidence we had. The police tried to see if they could resolve the matter, they also did their investigation and at the end of the day, they advised us to settle because they said it did not seem to be the problem that warranted criminal charges.”
