Otunba Sesan Rufai, the Chief Executive Officer of Goldmyne TV has expressed shock that one of his employees who is ill, made disparaging comments about him and the company.
The employee, Ambrose Adishi, earlier told SaharaReporters that he had been hospitalised for almost three years for kidney failure.
He cried out to his employer, soliciting financial support for a kidney transplant.
Ambrose Adishi said he worked for Goldmyne TV for about four years as a cameraman and head of the camera unit and earned N50,000 monthly before he fell sick.
According to him, the management of Goldmyne TV no longer cared whether he was alive or not, despite his contributions to the organisation.
He also alleged that the organisation asked that the company name should be removed from platforms through which he solicited funds from the public “so that it will not damage their image that they abandoned their staff member”.
However, when SaharaReporters got in touch with the MD/CEO of the organisation, Otunba Rufai, he described the allegations as false.
He accused Ambrose Adishi of mismanaging the first set of funds solicited for him through the company which were sent to the employee’s personal bank account, and that the management suggested that a new bank account should be opened which would guarantee transparency, as the company’s name was at stake.
Rufai said Ambrose Adishi insisted that all donations must come into his personal account while the company was kept in the dark as to its associates who sent money and what was sent.
According to Rufai, “all we want is accountability” which he said they were not getting.
Rufai said, “I was shocked when I woke up today and I saw Ambrose calling us out on our Instagram page which is totally discouraging to us. Ambrose worked for us as a cameraman and while working with us, he became sick.
“We have tried our possible best to assist him. We have put him on our social media platforms, on our TV programmes, on our radio programmes and we have the evidence of what we have done for him. And he has made millions of naira in this process.
“I have a lot of my friends, my associates who have given him money and we have the evidence here. Even last week, one of our biggest clients, Pastor Mrs Olugboyi, gave him N2 million on our behalf.
“Our challenge with Ambrose is that there was a time we made noise everywhere and people gave him money, one way or the other, he told my staff that his wife stole the money from his account. He could not do anything. He was fighting with his wife then, according to him.
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“We approached him through my General Manager and told him, we want to continue to post you on all our Instagram pages and on all our social media pages but we don’t want a situation where the money will not be accounted for.
“Give us somebody’s name so that we will be able to know how much that is sent to you and we can fly out to go and do the kidney transplant. As of two days ago, he was still discussing with my General Manager and our agreement is ‘give us a name so that the money will be accountable’.
“About four days ago when he was credited with N2 million, the woman called me – I have evidence – that she had given Ambrose N2 million. My General Manager went back to him and told him, ‘go and open a new account in your name and pay this N2 million into that account’.
“It is that account that we will use to receive funds to ensure accountability. We don’t want a situation where people will say that Goldmyne has taken people’s money but did not use it.
“He told my General Manager as of two days ago, no. He said it must be in the account he is using presently. My General Manager told him, ‘let’s open another account in your name so that when we make noise, the money will come because the money we have made since we started making noise, we cannot account for it’.
“A lot of my family members and friends have been giving him money and they expected appreciation from me and because I was not privy to how much they gave to him, some of them felt they gave me money and I did not appreciate them.
“So when we insisted that he should open the new account so that we will be able to know how much people are giving to him, that was how he got into a serious fight with us, and I woke up today and people have been calling me that Ambrose is calling us out that we have not been given him any money, which is a very big lie.
“We told him, let us arrange for you to go for a transplant so that it will be done once. I have the potential to make noise and people will donate money to you.
“About three days ago, someone sent me a WhatsApp message from Israel and said that he had been giving Ambrose money and that we have not done well for Ambrose.
“Where we are stuck now is that we want to start making noise for more publicity but he has to open a new account so that we will not have a situation where someone will give him money and we will not appreciate the person.
“Patoranking (Nigerian musician) gave him either N500,000 or N1 million some few months ago but I saw Patoranking and I didn’t say thank you. It came up when Patoranking saw my manager and I earlier saw Patoranking and didn’t say ‘thank you’.
“He fell out with my General Manager because he insisted that he must open a new account that would be open to everybody, and people would believe us and know that it is not a fraudulent thing.”
On Ambrose Adishi’s allegation that he was being owed salary, Rufai said, “We have never owed salary in Goldmyne because we are doing fine. We are not poor to the extent of not paying salaries.
“Ambrose is trying to play some scripts. We have evidence that we don’t owe salaries. Whatever he is saying, he is just trying to play on sentiment.
“What we are saying is, we have made thousands of adverts on his case and people have paid a lot of money to him but people are not comfortable and we can’t continue with that method.”
Madukwe B. Nwabuisi is an accomplished journalist renown for his fearless reporting style and extensive expertise in the field. He is an investigative journalist, who has established himself as a kamikaze reporter.
