The news of Nigeria’s music producer, OJB Jezreel’s kidney predicament drew public sympathy and attention to the extent that few hours after the news broke that he needed a matching kidney donor, phone buzzed and enquiries were made to some media people who reported the news that some people were willing to donate kidney to OJB Jezreel to help him out of the predicament.
“OJB Jezreel must not die, we can’t afford to lose another legend in the entertainment industry just like that,” one of the concerned volunteers had told First Weekly.
It was not surprising however, when members of the public, through some social media platforms, lambasted some Nigerian celebrities for ignoring the music producer-cum-singer by not donating to save him while they keep lavishing money on some material things.
Don Jazzy and P-Square reacted to the outburst on twitter. While Don Jazzy told his fans not to wait for any celeb to save OJB Jezreel, Peter Okoye of P-Square stated that they were solidly behind the ailing star.
Soon after, different figures were quoted in the media as the cash donated for the Save OJB Jezreel campaign headed by popular singer, Nomoreloss. The donations were enmeshed in controversies as there were conflicting reports of real and fake donors.
The controversies also reportedly caused the Lagos State Government, which had earlier donated the sum of N4.5 million to Nollywood actress, Ngozi Nwosu, to withdraw its support towards the Save OJB Jezreel campaign.
However, last week Tuesday the media reported that the Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, who doubles as the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF, donated a sum of N16Million, which covers the cost of the kidney transplant needed to save the life of OJB Jezreel.
What surprised us is that those who claimed to be in charge of OJB Jezreel’s Fundraising Campaign were not giving out authentic information to the media on what have been realized as donations.
This is because Nomoreloss, who claimed to be the head of the committee, once broadcast on BlackBerry that the N5M reportedly donated by P-Square was a fallacy, but a video released by CrunchTV rubbished his message.
When the supposed donation by Governor Amaechi became public knowledge, Nomoreloss initially claimed that it was false with a claim that the Governor had not contacted the committee, while in the actual sense; the people working behind the scene had almost finished plans on how the money would be passed across to the family.
Also, contrary to the rumoured issuance of the operation money last week Friday, the money was actually transferred into the appropriate account on Thursday by one of those who facilitated the donation on behalf of the government of Rivers State.
It is noteworthy to state that Governor Amaechi wanted a very quiet and discreet donation as he had been doing in the past.
Sources even confirmed to us that the governor is not happy that the secret donation was leaked to the press, which was apparently perpetrated by some greedy members of the OJB Jezreel Fundraising Committee, who wanted a share of the money.
Our findings showed that some of the fundraising committee members were actually keen on getting commissions from the donations made to OJB Jezreel by kind hearted Nigerians.
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