MR. FADEYI’S SILENCE SO FAR AND HIS STANCE
ON THE ISSUES We have the instruction of Akin Fadeyi to
write you this letter. Our client, Akin Fadeyi is
the creator of the anti-corruption media
campaign project “Not in My Country”. The ‘Not
In My Country’ project has been the subject of
a heated media exchange over allegations of copyright infringement and counter-allegations
of blackmail between some actors and other
concerned citizens who were privy to the ‘Not
in My Country’ anti-corruption campaign
project and the Hon. Minister of Information,
Culture and Tourism, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. By this letter, we seek to state our client’s position
for the first time in a public space, on the many
issues thrown up by the media fray. It is our
hope that upon reading this letter, Your
Excellency will come to appreciate our client’s
status as a partner in the pious goals of this administration and the need to thoroughly
investigate the issues surrounding the media
report. For the records, our client chose to remain
silent for three crucial reasons. First, our client
is a private business man genuinely concerned
with advancing our Nigerian society by
innovative thinking and development projects,
not a politician with any vested interests. Second, as shown below, the ‘Not in My
Country’ anti-corruption campaign project is a
product of our client’s lifelong vision to do
something towards ridding our society of the
cankerworm of decadence. On this point alone,
our client has the same goals as the present administration in tackling corruption
effectively at the grassroots. Third, our client will not sacrifice this noblest of
goals on the altar of claiming his personal
individual rights, especially not in a way
capable of being bastardized or confused with
propaganda, among other distractions. That is
not to say our client will not defend his work and hard-earned intellectual property rights in
a court of competent jurisdiction at the
appropriate time. Indeed, our client awaits
Alhaji Lai Mohammed to make good his threats
to sue him, in preparation for which he has
instructed our law firm to commence the preparation of processes in answer to any
summons filed against him. Without a doubt,
when our client responds to any processes
filed, his actions and motives will be clear and
unmistakable. BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR CLIENT’S 1-MINUTE
DRAMA SKIT ‘NOT IN MY COUNTRY’ ANTI-
CORRUPTION CAMPAIGN PROJECT Your Excellency, our client is an enterprising
young man with over a decade experience in
initiating, coordinating and executing national
(re)orientation and other development projects
in Nigeria. Specifically, our client conceived and
initiated the ‘Not in My Country’ anti-corruption campaign project as far back as the year 2007
at the University of Lagos. In a Letter granting
his request to use the University premises for
‘a three minutes clip demo tape on Saturday,
September 29, 2007’, the Principal Assistant
Registrar acknowledged that the “…project is on national re-orientation campaign aimed at
changing the attitudes of youths for the better
especially in the area of examination
malpractices and moral integrity” (Please find
attached Letter dated September 26, 2007). From those days of little beginnings, our client
kept working hard at his vision for this
project- an effective anti-corruption media
campaign which the Nigerian public would
easily connect with and ultimately respond to.
Thus, our client has records of having presented some of his drama skits to officials
of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other
Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in 2007. In
2008, our client took the project to Messrs
Joseph Adeyeye, Casmir Igbokwe and Steve
Ayorinde, the current Honorable Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Lagos, who was
then Editor of the Punch. Since then, our client
kept developing this project into the media
campaign to eradicate corruption over time-
using the 1-minute drama skit model- which
our client has perfected in his ‘Not in My Country’ project.

SUBSEQUENT CONDUCT OF THE HON. MINISTER OF
INFORMATION AND CULTURE Having received our client’s drama materials,
the Hon. Minister held on to them without
communicating with our client any further. All
attempts to reach and meet with him again
were evidently rebuffed by the Hon. Minister.
Undaunted, our client reverted to the original skits first presented to the Hon. Minister and
produced many more skits of the Not in My
Country drama. This was launched publicly to
wide media coverage on the 3rd of May, 2016
in a well-attended event at Leadway/Protea
Hotel, Maryland, Ikeja. The countless media coverage of news stories, opinions and
columns are available in print and electronic
media for all to see. Thereafter, our client
embarked on an aggressive nationwide
stakeholder engagement. Despite the Minister’s
silence after receiving the work, our client sent him a reminder letter, newspaper cuttings of
his launch and a comprehensive copy of his
Not in My Country project on the 9th of June
2016. Till date, the Hon. Minister has not replied
any of these correspondences. When on the 8th of September, 2016 the Hon
Minister launched a drama skit model of the
Change Begins with Me campaign, certain
persons who were privy to our client’s project
and others who witnessed his protracted
exchanges with the Minister have made statements and accusations. Rather, contrary to
all the Hon. Minister has said about him, our
client has neither released nor commissioned
anyone to release any comment on this matter
before now. For the avoidance of doubt, let the
following be known to the government, the Hon Minister and the Nigerian public as our
client’s stand on this issue: i. our client has read every reaction, some
spontaneous, some self serving and some
others patriotic since Alhaji Lai Mohammed
launched his ‘Change Begins With Me’
campaign; ii. our client has read some concerned public
reaction to the campaign questioning the
originality of some of its components and
accusing the Hon Minister of re-adapting the
drama concept of our client’s project to his
change campaign; iii. our client has read the Hon. Minister’s
sponsored and orchestrated media attacks on
his person and associates, tagging him as
someone “seeking shortcut to success”, a
blackmailer etc; iv. in all of this, our client has urged his group
of very patriotic young Nigerians and his
hardworking crew not to say a word in
response. Our client has equally consistently
refrained from uttering any rejoinder to the
Minister’s publications and correspondences. Naturally, our client wishes to state his side of
the story, but does not want to be mistaken
for a sponsored detractor of this government; v. our client has read the comments of all those
who believe the Minister’s account simply
because they are not aware of every shred of
evidence that shows all that transpired
between the parties till the Minister launched
this Change Begins with Me campaign on September 8, 2016; vi. our client is away in the United States to
further the traction his Not In My Country
project has gained and enhance it further
through strategic and sustainable ingredients
from a global dimension pursuant to
negotiations that began long before the advent of this administration; Without taking a stance on the issue and
without prejudice to a more robust response
to the Hon Minister’s threatened suit, we
believe that the law and reason will vindicate
our client’s narrative over and above any
contrary incredible narrative.