konknaijaboy | On 05, Nov 2013

The last is yet to be heard about the saga between the Organiser of this year’s Most Beautiful Girl In Abuja Mr. Ejiro Okhipwo and foremost Nigeria Rap act Ruggedman.

The 2013 edition of the Most Beautiful Girl in Abuja has come and gone with many still talking about the success of the event, however, mix reaction continues to trail the outcome of the event over the
controversial revelation by Ruggedman about his experience in the hands of the organizers.

Ruggedman who supposedly attended the event alongside other top celebrities to include former Super Eagles Coach, Samson Siasia, Sylvia Nduka, MBGN (2011), Oge Okoye, Chuks the General, Matilda Duncan, Fred Bright and a host of others walked away from Abuja, claiming to had been duped by the convener of the event, Mr Ejiro Okpihwo.

Information reaching us has it that Mr Ejiro had started a law suit against Ruggedman for defamation of Character and also going contrary to the terms and condition including the agreements made prior to the show.

The spark started with Ruggedman who had been known not only as a controversial artist but also an artist who revolutionised the Nigeria Hip Hop industry. Its not a surprise to see a press release from Ruggedman explaining how he fell into the arms of a fraud. We all know him to speak his mind and also the truth even in the eye of the storm but…………………………..is this actually the truth in these controversial event?

Below are the un-edited extracts from press releases from Ruggedman immediately after the event:

I do not know why i always want to help out. I guess its my nature but it gives room for a ot of people to take advantage and repay my good with evil. It has happened once too many and i am tired of it and this Ejiro Okhipwo will not go un exposed for the fraudster/trickster that he is.

He is the promoter of the so called most beautiful girl pageant in Abuja,so i was told when i met him a few months ago while in the middle of a messed up promoters event,i guess they know each other smh. We became friends and i agreed to make an appearance at his October 26th event in Abuja for an honourarium of 100k penre,all for promoting my artist o. Na there i enter one chance.‬

‪1. He delayed till the Friday before his event to get in touch with me and pleaded to pay 50k into my account to balance off as soon as we landed Abuja. As a good person i agreed,since i had already given my word.

2. By 3.30pm no bank alert and i thought he was trying to wait till 4pm when banks would have closed to say “we have paid the money,but i guess they didd not post it in time thats why you havent gotten the alert”. So i called and asked that the person with the cash should be waiting for us at the airport.

Thinking i was dealing with a rational human being,i decided to head to Abuja so that it wont be said that i refused to come because of the lean change he did not send.‬

‪LANDED ABUJA 8:30PM and no cash at the airport,no Ejiro Okhipwo either. We proceeded to the hotel where we stayed until the next day. No welfare,i had to take care of everything from my pocket o (make hungry no kill us where we dey wait for useless people in Jesus name…).‬

‪SATURDAY 5:00PM still no word or the presence of Ejiro Okhipwo but someone called fuja who works for him brought two packs into my room. On opening it i found some cold,milkless,sugarless oatmeal. The second pack contained boiled yam,under friend plantain under baked beans LWKMD. I wondered if it was breakfast,lunch or both….at 5PM O.‬

‪The event was slated to start by 7pm and by 6pm i sent Ejiro Okhipwo a BB message that i will not leave the hotel room if he doesnt pay what was agreed because i was already suspecting foul play. No response and we lounged till the next day.‬

‪SUNDAY: hotel management informs us that Ejiro Okhipwo said everyone should check out of the hotel by 12noon. We called him only for him to send me txt messages that “i am heartless for not coming to his show and will fuck me up” LMAO!!!

A show that he did not pay the lean honourarium “we” agreed to? The deal was to pay before i leave Lagos,i even managed to get to Abuja and he did not have the courtesy to come see us? Even if he did not have the money to pay,i have done loads of free shows for small time promoters like him. His would not have killed me.Now here he was threatening to fuck me up. I laughed so hard.

A few people i know called him and he kept bragging and threatening (over the phone) that he will deal with me and fuck me up.‬

‪Finally: Mr Ejiro Okhipwo i have been in Abuja since then and i have not seen you let alone getting fucked up by you (if i hear).

I have even had enough time to apply for and get visas for me and my artist and yet we havent seen you.‬

‪Desmond,your PAs friend was involved in an accident and suffered internal bleeding while driving artists who came for your event and when you were told all you said was “its none of your business”. God will forgive you.‬

‪The girls you brought from Lagos who worked for you and you ran off without paying them or giving them transport fare to go back will never forgive you.‬

‪The babe (name witheld) you brought from Lagos and you abandoned her in the hotel (because she no give you do) will never forgive you.‬

‪Mr Ejiro Okhipwo of most beautiful girl in abuja,so many people speak ill of you and i pray to God that you change your evil ways. I wont say its because you are short (short man devil) because i know a lot of great short men. I guess you think you are smart and can use and abandone people,but you are far from smart. Your days are numbered and karma is a bitch.

You keep saying commissioners are your friends,the IG is your friend. So? They are not above the law and will not stoop as low as to support your stupid antics. The same IG that is against crime? He will probably end up locking you up.‬

‪I wrote this so people and especially fellow artists should beware of the moronic abuja entertainment fraudster called Ejiro Okhipwo. If you must work with him (at your own risk) COLLECT ALL YOUR MONEY and RETURN TICKETS before you fly to Abuja,because you might not see him after the event and dont be surprised if he threatens to fuck you up lol!!!‬

‪ENTERTAINERS STAY AWAY FROM EJIRO OKHIPWO,he is not to be trusted. I am speaking from experience.‬

‪
Mr. Ejiro denied having done anything wrong to Ruggedman, threatening to sue him for not heeding to the terms of their agreement.
In a swift response to the allegation by Ruggedman.

Mr Ejiro came up with the press statement below;

He said Ruggedman had pleaded to perform at the show, just to build more fan base as he is about to drop a new album. He said that the so called honorarium that Ruggedman was ‘hammering on was only N50,000 and not N100,000 as he had alleged. Ejiro had told a reporter, Adoyi Ali in Abuja after he was asked to present his own side of the story.

The MBGA boss was approached while coming out of a church on Sunday morning. Mr Ejiro had said vehemently that not in the history of the entertainment Industry had an artist of Ruggedman’s status humiliated himself over such a little amount of money as claimed. He said, “first of all, I’m embarrassed that this man, Ruggedman, could bring himself so low by exposing his own shame publicly in the media. I’m embarrassed because no artiste could have done what this guy did to us even when we felt we were doing him a big favour. Look, I have organized several editions of this event, and different artistes have graced our event, but we have never been swindled before.

This is our first experience, and unfortunately, it’s an artiste who has lost audience appeal that did this to us. Anyway, I wanted to let this pass, but since he has gone to humiliate himself in the media, I will follow this up. I’m consulting with my lawyer at the moment, and we may sue Rugged man for defamation of character, and his failure to heed to our earlier agreement with him.

Speaking further, he said, “it’s amazing the way Ruggedman misbehaved. As a supposed respected elder in the business of entertainment, we never expected that from him. No wonder he had a fight with his boy, 9ice who became bigger and better than him in the music game. Quite frankly, what we do when we are bringing an artiste to our show is to pay the person upfront, he gives us his most convenient time to travel, and we book his return ticket. It’s laughable and extremely ridiculous that Rugged is claiming we were to pay him honorarium of N100,000. I couldn’t have paid him N100,000 when he was the one who begged us for the show. He
said he wanted the award to get himself acquainted with his Abuja fans. This is not what we would have loved to say ordinarily, if not that he has gone public, because we respect all the artistes we deal
with, no matter the status. Having called me personally to beg for the
award, we told him, look, we will appreciate your presence after our event as we did not put you in our budget earlier. We then booked for his flight, we sent him the tickets reference number(ZYRBRL)and he came into Abuja on Friday, the 25th of October, 2013 and was picked up from the airport without delays. He was also checked into a classic hotel with a four star value as agreed, TOP RANK GALAXY HOTEL ABUJA ROOM 224 & 225, with food and drinks on ground for him to enjoy a day before the event. But unfortunately for the MBGA organizers, Ruggedman refused to pick up calls placed to him. In fact, He went ahead to even show some other artistes that also came for the event with him in the same hotel, that “see, see, see, the organizers of the event are calling me, but I will not pick, I will make them go through hell since they have refused to see me since yesterday that I arrived.

We wondered at the change of agreement and his refusal to pick up calls. The question was why was our own Ruggedman disgracing himself over N50,000 that we agreed to pay him after the event.

At least, we expected him to pick up and give us his new terms, but he never did. Information got to us that he was to have a meeting with some people that time over his album, the reason he used our show for transportation. Denying that such was the attitude of the organizers towards artistes and guests, Ejiro said, “if we can invite all the Nollywood acts, artistes and comedians like him, why should we not want to pay him a little amount of N50,000 only?
“With an apology, I want to say that Ruggedman is really not a good role model, and that has resulted to his poor performance over time. I think the name rugged is influencing his life and his career.

He needsto redefine his name, and what he represents as an artiste. You cannot
continue to fight people who try to make you relevant as an entertainer. It’s sad. “We knew this guy was not an A-List artist, yet we went ahead to invite him to be awarded Just to have him get on track.

He attested to the fact that we were creating visibility for him, but we were shocked at what we received from him; insults, by putting up very sad news just to tarnish the good name and record of MBGA event. We won’t just let this pass. We will ask some legal questions on why he should come out to castigate us without reasons. We are very sorry for him, because he is going to pay the MBGA for all damages he had caused the event.

“We admit that we abandoned him at the hotel in Abuja after the event because he refused to perform his own part of the gentlemen agreement we had. would it have been nice to pay him even when he refused to pick up our calls to perform at the show?

Had he performed at the show and we refused to pay him, then his media query would have been a little reasonable. How would he have expected the MBGA to pay for his fair back to Lagos? He is a very nonsensical element and should be treated as such. This same Ruggedman stayed in that same hotel on our bills from Friday a day before the event to Monday; that is two days after the event. So we told the hotel to check him out once its 12noon on Monday, the 28th of October 2013.

Threatening a court action against the rapper, Ejiro said, “Ruggedman will hear from us very soon. Our Lawyers will serve him for damages and he will pay from his nose. Its funny and unfortunate that he can’t even afford to answer a case at a competent
court of law at the moment. I think he needs some help, but he is yet to realize that. How can an artiste be fighting all through his career?

Is it supposed to be his calling? We sincerely appeal to all our fans to remain calm and focused, believing that we have better things for them.

Everybody is a partner in what we do. We do not have any police bosses as claimed by Ruggedman. He just deleted me from his Blackberry contact, else, I would have copied all the chats I had with him for you. He did that purposely to conceal our gentleman agreement.

Speaking on the purported threat, Ejiro said, “I did not
threaten him, nobody did that, instead, he was using different people to threaten us. I think the guy wants to use us to promote his album, but we won’t let his gimmicks distract us, as we will continue to pull great events for Abuja people.” Ejiro had affirmed

……………And the final twist in the story came up when Cynthia Chioma Ohiaege who claimed to have worked closely with Ejiro came up with these statement:

My name is Cynthia chioma ohiaege i worked with Ejiro Okhipwo on his just concluded MBGA. I was the person that sent Ruggedman and Mbryos tickets. He only sent one way tickets and not return. I was even surprised Ruggedman was nice enough to still come,when Ejiro had not done what they agreed to.

I was part of the team that picked them from the airport when they arrived Abuja. Mr Ejiro i am sorry if this does not go down well with you but I am an honest person and will not stand by and watch anothers image tarnished for being nice and especially when i know the truth.

I was there when Ejiro and Ruggedman met for the very first time months ago in Abuja at febson hotel. It was at the same meeting that Ejiro asked Ruggedman to come for his event. In the begining he actually said Ruggedman will be a judge and do the auditions with them.

So Ruggedman never begged to be on ejiros show. I know because i was there. Even Seemo D Black Ceaser was there too.

Mr Ejiro never played a good host to the artists and its a shame he chooses to make up stories to make himself look good instead of accepting his faults and apologising to the artists. From the day they got to Abuja till they left,he never for once came to see them. I was ashamed of what he sent to them as food the next day. As a promoter you are expected to transport,accomodate and take care of the artists welfare. Instead you abandoned them and Ruggedman did it all from his pocket. His only complaint was that you did not show any courtesy by atleast coming to say hello and hold up your end of the bargain.

I was also there when other people called Ejiro and he was saying he has the money with him but was going to deal with Ruggedman. How can you not do what was agreed on and you turn around and say you will deal with the person? Ruggedman stayed a week extra in Abuja and you did not pay his bills. He did all that and even accomodated your guest you abandoned.I am saying from being there that Ruggedy is one of the nicest people you can ever get to know. That is if you ever meet and get to hang around him. He has a big heart.

It is always best to accept when you are wrong,it makes you a better person in life. So please Ejiro stop all the mud slinging,apologise and make amends. You were wrong, be a man and accept it and move on.

The heat is on and we believe this will not be the last on this issue.