Earlier in the week, through an open letter, Ibinabo Fibresima had reacted to Clarion Chukwurah’s allegations that she wasn’t fit to run the Actors Guild of Nigeria. Ibinabo in the letter, said she didn’t want to exchange words with Clarion but had to eventually do so because, “As President, I should be seen to be uniting members of the Guild and not causing disaffection, as your unfortunate outburst set out to do.”
In an Interview with Punch,Clarion fires back....Read what she said...
Clarion said, “I am not on the same level with Ibinabo Fibresima professionally, educationally or in any other form. I find that she is deliberately misleading the public and wanting to push the issues at stake under the table with her so-called open letter. I will not allow her to do that.”
Clarion insisted that apart from not being educationally qualified, being an ex-convict disqualified Ibinabo from being the president of AGN.
“Item ‘U’ of the electoral guideline of AGN disqualified her. No convicted person can stand for election in any post. She was convicted for manslaughter and she was given a jail sentence which she served. There is a court injunction stopping Ibinabo from parading herself as the AGN president. This is the copy of the judgment. I have it. Manslaughter has no option of fine. Her sentence was reduced from seven years to five years and we all know she went to jail. The judgment reads in part, ‘there is proof that she drove recklessly and caused the death of Dr. Sura Giwa contrary to the road traffic laws of Lagos State.’ She was drunk. How could this person be the face of AGN?”
Clarion said she was shocked that President Goodluck Jonathan recognised and welcomed Ibinabo as president of AGN when she visited Aso Rock recently.
“The court injunction of 2011 and 2013 was forwarded to the presidency. The criminal conviction of manslaughter was sent to the presidency. The president is supposed to be a symbol of the supremacy of the rule of law. He disregarded the law in recognising Ibinabo as president of AGN. The president is now saying there is no law in this country. So the AGN has become an ethnic grouping. This is a professional body of actors. It is not a Niger Delta solidarity platform,” she said.
The actress said she wouldn’t have joined Ibinabo’s party to Aso Rock even if she had invited her, saying, “Some actors have even explained to me why they followed her. They said they were taken there on a fraudulent arrangement for her to use and get what she wanted. Would she really have approached me for a thing like that?”
Clarion alleged that Ibinabo had been going from one state government house to another to “beg” for money.
“I have the data of every government house she has been to. No single chapter has seen a dime for running the guild. She went to Ondo State and she was given N500, 000. What chapter did she inaugurate in Ondo State? The guild wasn’t set up to go begging from one state government to another.”
Clarion said Ibinabo couldn’t have clocked 40 years as she claimed in her letter because, “In 1989 when she was running Pyramid Club in Lagos, she was 22. How can she say 25 years later that she is just turning 40? I have known her a long time. I know what I am saying when I say she is not a professional actor.”
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