SAN FRANCISCO, July 03, (THEWILL) –The crisis within the Actors Guild Of Nigeria (AGN) won’t be ending anytime soon it seems.
After labeling former AGN President, Ibinabo Fiberesima and veteran actor Segun Arinze as paid stooges acting on the orders of a higher authority, multinationals specifically as well as accusing Fiberesima of running the guild like a side business, controversial actor Emeka Ike has responded to a faceless group’s announcement that he isn’t the AGN President as he’s been parading himself as, adding that chairman of AGN National Caretaker Committee, Steve Eboh will head the committee that would set up an electoral body very soon.
In his reaction, Ike said he had heard about the current development and blamed it on those who he claimed took the N3bn Federal Government intervention fund for the association, reports The Punch.
He said, “I got the same message from my source. My Lagos chapter conducts meeting every last Thursday. You can go to Hail Sailisi Hotel in Aguda and see the crowd for today’s meeting. I don’t ask you to make my meetings go viral. It’s on the ground. I am sure you have got a good friend among them seeing the way you get their one-minute information, like the state house reporters.
“The case in court stipulates resolution of crises. I’m sure you read it in the judgement you have with you. You should know this is just another way of rumbling the quiet fluid which I’ve told you several times are from the usurpers of our N3bn grant. How can they say they trained 247 artistes with about N799m in Harvard and Ibinabo Fiberisima’s faction got seven slots while Emeka Ike’s faction got no slot? Which ID cards were used?
“We agreed at the first stakeholders’ forum to spend the N3bn wisely and a committee was set up right there at the main bowl of the National Theatre. There, I was unanimously voted into the committee to represent AGN and all factions were present. After a few meetings, the committee chairman started having cold feet and that dragged the process to a halt, then again, resurrected by a few actors in another caucus. That was where project ACT was finally adopted by them against the background that they refused it at the National Theatre, calling it a fraud. We suggested that it will be better to have the industry use the money within the associations because it is called an intervention fund.”
“But they’ve settled themselves and shared our common patrimony. Now the associations must know no peace as they sponsor more groups and crises. They want to keep my group away from the N3bn so no questions are asked. That’s what they are doing.”
He called on the government to wade into the matter without bias so that the crisis within the body can be squashed.
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