Many of prominent Nigerians who made pledges in the presence of President Goodluck Jonathan during the special appeal fund launch for victims of 2012 flood disaster are yet to redeem their promises, six months after.
Some of those who pledged but are yet to redeem them have enjoyed the tax incentives attached to their pledges.
A Presidential Flood Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, co-chaired by business mogul, Aliko Dangote and frontline lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba, which put the fund raising together has read the riot act to the pledge defaulters threatening to publish their names should they fail to remit their pledges on or before June 30.
Advising the defaulters to respect themselves and maintain their honour and integrity, the committee vowed that it would expose those who had not turned in their pledges by publishing their names in national dailies in the next three weeks.
Recall that the 34-man presidential committee targeting N100 billion held a fund-raising dinner at the Presidential Villa, Abuja during which donations and pledges made by prominent Nigerians amounted to N11.35 billion.
Dangote and the Federal Government topped the chat with the donation of N2. 5 billion apiece, while Jim Ovia, chairman of Visafone and Tony Elumelu followed suit with N1 billion each.
Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke and her Communications counterpart had pledged to mobilise the indigenous oil companies and telecommunications firms, which were invited but were absent at the dinner, to respond to the donation.
To motivate and encourage the audience to donate bountifully, President Jonathan had announced tax incentives for all corporate organisations that would donate into the flood relief fund meant to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians who were affected by the disaster last year.
Obviously miffed at the continuous refusal of the people and firms to redeem their pledges, even when the committee was about to move to the next stage of its assignment, which was to implement the rehabilitation of the victims, the committee decided to make the appeal open.
A statement issued by the committee in Lagos and signed by the co-chairmen, said it would publish the names of defaulters in the newspapers and other social media blogs if by June 30 they refused to redeem their promise.
Via: Sun News Online
Flood isn't something anyone should toy with at all. Nigeria shouldn't experience it in any way from time to time.