*Says this is about truth, not money

Embattled music producer Ezekiel Onyedikachuwu, also known as Thankgod, and founder of EeZee Conceptz Limited, spoke out after a court session today regarding the ongoing legal battle with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

In a statement outside the court after today’s court proceedings, Onyedikachuwu refuted allegations of wrongdoing, emphasizing transparency and his commitment to justice:

“Hello everyone, my name is Dr. Izeti, music executive of Izi Concepts Global and Izi Global Ministry. We’re here at the court to address a purported and orchestrated evil agenda attempting to sell the wrong impression to the public that we were running. We keep wondering why we should be running – this is our country.

No notice was given to me. We didn’t know anything about the notice. I’ve been appearing regularly – I was at the EFCC on December 10th precisely, where I waited for about four hours and nobody attended to me.

We’re here in Nigeria, and a fundamental human rights action had been filed regarding my rights that were breached when I was detained for about nine days in April last year. I needed to understand why I was detained, as there was no court order justifying why my accounts and company accounts were frozen. My business was rendered completely hit on the pulse.

This transaction is predicated on a contractual relationship, prepared by our certified copyright lawyer, Udo Odomo. There was a breach of this contract where the said artist, who is supposed to be a gospel artist with integrity, who’s supposed to sing and name Jesus, who’s supposed to keep to their words, breached the contract by directing event monies into personal accounts. They were using content that belongs to us and collecting those monies personally without any form of remittance.

We were remitting royalties until we sent an official mail stating we would no longer send royalties until there’s a proper mutual financial reconciliation. We need to have a meeting conducted on the premise of an unbiased audit without any religious influence from fathers or mothers who have your interest and want to entice us to do what isn’t normal.

This is about justice. When we say this, is it about money? No, this is not just about money. It’s about truth, sincerity, and integrity. It’s about saying yes and keeping to yes. This is a 50-50 transaction where we have not even recouped capital. By that, I mean we’re sharing 50-50 on gross, not on net. That’s a fair contract.

When I got to the EFCC, I was told not to write my truth. I was told there’s nothing about contracts – they just deal with figures and wanted me to just write the monies that I’m owing. I said we can’t talk about monies without talking about what gave birth to money. These contract monies were invested into the artist and generated this amount of money.

If there was money that was supposed to come to us and it wasn’t coming, and we communicated this, you cannot communicate and divert. You can’t divert what you have communicated. There’s an email to that effect. So how is this diversion? The monies went into the right channels – by right channels, I mean the accounts that are known to the artist. There was no email regarding diversion of money, and there was no resentment whatsoever with respect to how the funds were handled.”

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