NIDO Again!

I have been very impressed with your publications and have become quite a fan. I’m particularly interested in this NIDO story because when the news first broke in 2007, I was hoping there would be some follow up. I am a lawyer in Lagos, and was commissioned by a client to institute legal action against this Kassim fellow for outright fraud on this land issue. My client has not been to the country and despite several calls and email messages, we have not been able to trace the property he is purported to have acquired.

I think what has been most upsetting is the deliberate withholding of information by these guys. Kassim keeps promising to provide information and would actually schedule meetings- mostly tele-conferences with us, but just will never follow up. More and more everyday, the guys becoming elusive and that makes the matter all the more frustrating. The organization lacks any form of credibility and I wonder how it managed to build such clout and influence to secure that entire estate. If you investigate further, you will find that most of those allocations are fictitious. The man is a fraud.

More importantly is the youth angle to this story. I was very interested to read about the ‘self styled’ Asiwaju who incidentally was an acquaintance of my son in Stratford in London. If we had good system of checks, we would have revealed perhaps one of the greatest racketeering and fraudulent activities capable of a young brilliant fellow. He has got away with this youth development scam, giving speeches on the NIDO platform without impacting any young person and he receives awards on that basis! I hear he even went with a delegation a while back to visit the queen of England and receives international awards based on falsehoods and lies!!

My son informs me of some of the horrendous antics this young man get up to all for self aggrandizement and financial gains. I know for a fact that he uses a false name and passport to travel around the world, he lies about his age to receive scholarships (education-one of which he is benefitting from at the moment), and uses NIDO as a front to ferry friends and family- sponsored by unassuming and sometimes dumb international organizations- around the world! He speaks the NGO development language that these Europeans like to hear, but has actually NOT done anything for young people within or outside Nigeria! He misinterpretes other people events to pretend like he put it together (some global programme that was supposed to take place in Abuja for example).

That’s just another level of 419. Another reason why I think you should do a story on the 419 NGO phenomenon in Nigeria- there are soooo many of them around these days.

NIDO- whether its youth angle or entire body does no one in the Diaspora any good. No development milestones have been attained, no track records, and no one is asking these guys questions. I’ m very wary of the ‘diasporans’. That organization needs to be shut down and its principal players, Kassim, Bosun, Israel need to be seriously probed.

Well done to you guys and I wish you success this season and always.

Funke

tejuoshofunke@yahoo.co.uk

On Jan 3, 2008