The momentary peace being enjoyed by the governing body of Nigerian actors, Actors Guild of Nigeria may soon end as another crisis looms.
A statement by the secretary of the Ibinabo camp of AGN, Abubakar Yakub stated that “the National Executive Committee of AGN received the news of a group purported to have set up a Caretaker Committee to take over the Guild as a shock because no group/stakeholders approached the National Executive Committee with respect to the said meeting.”
Yakub noted that state executive committees were also not aware of the purported meeting.
The statement read, “Much as we would not like to respond to the resolution of the said stakeholders meeting, which looks like child’s play to us, we need to set the records straight for avoidance of doubt by our teeming members and the general public.
“The fact is that Ibinabo Fiberesima remains the only elected president of the AGN. The matter between St. Maradona Mclive Johnson and AGN, which judgment was pronounced by Justice T.S Tshoho of the Federal High Court, Lagos on March 16, 2015 is a subject of appeal at the Federal Court of Appeal Lagos, no: Ca/l/498/16.”
It added that “until final judgment is given by the Supreme Court, if it takes us there, it will ever remain like that. Examples abound of how state Governors were sacked by tribunals and even appeal courts, but were never removed from office until Supreme Court gives its final judgment. Our states’ executive committees were not aware of the meeting including over 85 per cent of state chairmen across the country. So the chairmen that attended the said meeting did so on their individual capacity and not on behalf of their state AGN chapters.”
Yakub restated that the national and states’ executive committees as well as committed members were not deterred in the face of all the provocations coming from one particular section of the Actors Guild of Nigeria.
He said the National President was not also moved by all the distractions as she remains focused and committed to the welfare and well-being of members. “She cannot be cowed out of office. We have respect for the rule of law and shall abide by the legal and constitutional process in order to entrench a lasting peace in our noble Guild.
“We urge our members to disregard the so called resolution, which is aimed at satisfying the inordinate ambitions of disgruntled few in the Guild,” the statement said.
It will recalled that, on March 24, 2016, the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, stripped Ibinabo Fiberesima of her position as the president of AGN.
This occurred while Fiberesima was in jail over the killing of Dr Suraj Giwa in 2005.
Fiberesima was sentenced to jail on March 11 by the Court of Appeal after validating the five-year jail term given to the actress by the Lagos High Court. She was later granted bail by the court of appeal on April 7.
