By Ikhili Ebalu, Benin City
The family of late Sir Prof. Victor Uwaifo, has distanced themselves from a purported one year anniversary celebration to mark the passage of the musical maestro.
Addressing Journalists in Benin, Mr. Goodman Uwaifo said the attention of the family members have been drawn to an ongoing arrangements by one Chris Osaretin Eburu who was their late father’s manager’s plans to organize a one year anniversary ceremony for the late music icon.
He said the said manager has been going about canvassing and asking those who care to listen to donate towards the anniversary celebration.
Mr. Goodman said Eburu did not consult with the members of the family before taking such decision to organize an event to mark the one year anniversary of their late father.
Goodman added that not that the family is against anybody with good intentions to organize an anniversary celebration for their late father but certainly not their late father’s manager.
He said their late father’s manager is currently battling a legal suit of forgery instituted against him by the members of the family.
Also speaking, first child and daughter of Uwaifo, Mrs. Reden Oghomwen Uwaifo, while reiterating the words of her younger brother, Goodman on the issue of the forgery case, alleged that the manager has altered her late father’s will and brought witnesses to testify in court.
She said, her late father, while alive, did not have those whose signatures appeared on his will as friends.
“The witnesses are not the kind of persons my late father would associates with.
“My father cannot have unmarried woman to sign his will”, she said.
Reden said her father was a hardworking man and that she will not fold her hands and watch another man rip them off of their father’s inheritance.
“My father was a very hard working man till he died and I will not allow anybody to reap what he has laboured for.
“I am fighting for my father’s legacy”, she said.
The Okaegbe for the burial of late Uwaifo, Mr. Udinyiwe Obaretin, accused the manager (Eburu) of fomenting crisis within the family.
He said it was the same manager that drew the burial plan for Uwaifo without the consent of the senior son and other members of the family and he was vehemently rebuked until the family later fixed the date for his (Uwaifo) burial rites.
Reacting, Eburu said he will not comment on the issue of forgery as the matter is already before the law court and that it behoves on the court to prove an issue of forgery in any documents before it.
On the issue of celebrating late Victor Uwaifo’s anniversary, he said the Revelation Palaza Tourist centre owned by the late Uwaifo, is an association and that an association does not need the approval of the children of Uwaifo before it could carry out any anniversary ceremony for its late member.
He said the consent of other family members were fully gotten before the arrangements for the anniversary was being made.
He also denied going about begging for funds to celebrate Uwaifo’s anniversary.