SATURDAY BREAKFAST with TONY OKOROJI (GUEST COLUMNIST -AZEEZAT ALLEN)

I received this piece just this morning from the great singer and my colleague, Azeezat whom we love to call the Queen of Love. In the last two years, Azeezat has lived in North America. She was a member of the COSON Board and worked hard towards the building of the COSON brand. She also served for a while on the PMAN National Executive Council. Please read on:

THIS IS NOT AN OKOROJI TESTIMONIAL!

I am a proud Okoroji protégée. He has encouraged me to be a better version of myself.

Chief Tony Okoroji speaks in parables and leaves you with many quotable quotes. In his words: “Man is not blessed by what he takes but by what he gives”. So, I work harder at being more of a blessing to others.

“I drive on a full tank of faith”. So, I expand my vision, dream bigger, work harder at it, knowing that even if it doesn’t look feasible at first, I have learnt from Chief Okoroji that if I keep trudging on, everything will align itself with time.

“Never conspire with anyone to loot or commit a crime, because when the tides turn, they will use the information against you”.

I was present about six years ago when Pretty Okafor came to COSON to present a PMAN project for Chief Okoroji’s endorsement. It was clear that Chief Okoroji had never previously met Okafor.

The first question Chief asked him was: how did he (Pretty Okafor) become PMAN President?

Pretty gave a long narrative about how a court case made him president. Chief listened, and then pointed out that this was not part of the PMAN constitution. He advised him to follow the constitution in order to ensure the legality of his position.

Then Pretty went ahead to present his new PMAN scheme: something about members paying Five Thousand Naira to gain a huge sum of money. Chief Okoroji simply asked him how he planned to finance this.

The answers he gave didn’t add up: If you are a numbers person, it is easy to know how 2+2 makes 4. If someone told you 2+2 makes 400 you would definitely question it. It appeared like a scam and if you know Chief Tony Okoroji, he does not touch scams. He said a loud NO to Pretty Okafor.

From that point on, the relationship seemed to grow sour. Which makes me unsurprised about everything that Pretty has been doing in recent years to support anything or anyone with an axe to grind with Okoroji.

As I was moved to do this writeup, I went online and googled Pretty Okafor’s PMAN in order to make sure I didn’t get my facts wrong. I found an array of promises by Pretty Okafor to Nigerian artistes back in 2015 when he said he had become president. This made me wonder; can any Nigerian artiste come out and say what they have benefited from Pretty Okafor’s PMAN?

No matter what you say about Chief Okoroji, he does not make promises he does not work extremely hard to keep. Testimonial to that is the thousands of Nigerian artistes, home and abroad, who keep sending him prayers regularly, thanking him for the efforts he keeps making in the pursuit of their rights. Chief Tony Okoroji has never asked any Nigerian artiste to pay one kobo to him or COSON yet COSON has distributed hundreds of millions of Naira to Nigerian artistes.

But like this write-up is titled, this is absolutely not an Okoroji testimonial. It is about how some pots in the Nigerian music industry keep calling the kettle black:

How come no one has ever really publicly questioned Pretty Okafor the same questions he openly poses to others on social media?

I truly wish artistes could come out and claim that they have benefited from Pretty Okafor’s varied PMAN schemes for Nigerian artistes. For instance, one of such schemes is the PMAN Health and Life Insurance Policies where a PMAN member pays 5k registration fee and he is automatically entitled to a Health and Life insurance scheme, worth N5million. My question is this, this scheme was announced in 2015, can any artiste who knows someone who has benefited from this scheme come out and declare?

I understand that Lagos based artistes are more liberal, but Nigerian artistes from other parts of the country appear to be more regulated by their PMAN state chapters; they pay their dues religiously. How many of them have benefited from Pretty’s schemes?

A 5 million Naira Life insurance policy that was announced in 2015, definitely dues-paying members of PMAN have passed away since then, please can we identify one single member that has been paid this money?

This is just one. What about the biometric scheme that was also celebrated with pomp and pageantry back then? How has that impacted on Nigerian artistes? Let the artistes that have benefited come out and give testimonials.

I’m not done, Pretty keeps joining others to call for the audit of COSON’s accounts by KPMG. This is a COSON that is religiously audited annually. How come no one has called for the audit of PMAN and how Pretty Okafor manages its funds? Surely, what is good for the goose is definitely good for the gander? If he cannot even afford a KPMG, he should use a K-P-anything. #AuditPMAN FULLSTOP.

I can go on and on. But I will stop with only one thought: why would Pretty Okafor go on social media and accuse Chief Okoroji of all sorts of things but does show up in court at all to present his evidence? Why? Why make accusations, tarnish someone’s image when you can’t even show up like a man to back it up?

This is definitely not an Okoroji testimonial. There are thousands of musicians in Nigeria who will proudly give a testimonial for the great Chief Tony Okoroji. The Copyright Act is an Okoroji testimonial. The Nigerian Copyright Commission is an Okoroji testimonial. The amazing Nigerian Music Awards is an Okoroji testimonial. The beautiful glass house on Oluwaleimu Street in Ikeja called the COSON House is an Okoroji testimonial. The power packed seven days of spectacle called the COSON Week is an Okoroji testimonial. The PMAN presidency which Pretty Okafor has taken over and uses to spew his hatred is an Okoroji testimonial.

Just recently with the Corona virus lockdown, Okoroji supervised the distribution of over 70 million naira from COSON to relieve the pain of suffering musicians all over Nigeria. That is an indelible Okoroji testimonial. The Okoroji testimonial is everywhere. This is a call for well-meaning Nigerians to come out and ask @PrettyOkafor for his testimonials.

Thank you for reading.

- AZEEZAT ALLEN – Guest Columnist
See you next week