Business partners at war led to Burna Boy concert being cancelled

Sedote Nwachukwu, the CEO of the company bringing Burna Boy to Mzansi, has defended himself after being labelled a fraudster by his business partner Gregory Wings.

This has led to the cancellation of the Burna Boy concert set to take place this Saturday.

Earlier this week news broke that Grammy Award-winning artist Burna Boy’s concert at FNB Stadium had been postponed. However, it has since emerged the real reason behind the rescheduling was because Nwachukwu, who was the CEO of Ternary Media Group, allegedly embezzled company funds.

“In light of the allegations of misconduct, The Ternary Media Group has relieved Mr Nwachukwu of his CEO responsibilities until further notice,” read a statement from Wings, the company’s managing partner.

Wings opened a case of fraud against Nwachukwu on Tuesday at Sandton Police Station.

In his police statement seen by The Citizen, Wings described himself as a self-employed 40-year-old.

Despite allegations of the event being cancelled, Ternary Media Group had yet to confirm this to The Citizen at the time of publication. However, according to the Ticketpro website, the event has been cancelled.

But speaking to The Citizen, Nwachukwu has defended himself.

“Firstly I have not stolen R8 million or any money so let’s get that out the way. This is not true and is 100 % false,” he said.

“I brought Gregory Wings into the entertainment world five months ago as his background is in construction. He was good with numbers and I thought bringing him into my field I could have someone who could help out when I was not around.”

Nwachukwu said he founded the company with Wings and his wife. But the company registration papers he sent shows only Wings’ wife, Britney, and Nwachukwu as the owners and Wings’ name is suspiciously missing.

“He has never invested into any projects and I have self-funded my own past projects. He is not my investor and never has been. We have one investor that assisted in paying for Burna Boy, not myself or Gregory Wings,” he said.

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Why Burna Boy concert was cancelled

In the police papers, Wings described how he found out last Friday that his business partner had allegedly wired funds into his personal account, after meeting Ticketpro managing director Brandon Duffield.

“On Wednesday, 13 September at around 08h20 I went to FNB Stadium to meet with the supplier of the gig which was supposed to take place on 23 September. After I met with the supplier, I called Brandon Duffield who is the (managing director) of TicketPro. Brandon then asked me to meet him on Friday, 15 September, at his office.

“The account verification document was issued to me and to my surprise all the money was transferred to my business partner’s account by the name of Iheanyichukwu Sedote Nwachukwu without my consent,” read the statement.

Wings also said he received the proof of payment, which showed the money had been transferred to Nwachukwu’s account on different occasions.

“The first payment of R2 891 823.60 (was made) on 27 July, second payment of R2 837 724.40 on 23 August, third payment of R1 176 265 on 31 August and the last payment of R689 449.50 on 8 September. Iheanyichukwu Nwachukwu was not supposed to take this money without my consent since we are business partners,” wrote Wings.

Due to these alleged transactions, suppliers and vendors for the Burna Boy concert could not be paid.

But Nwachukwu disagrees with this narrative.

According to him, they both planned to be in Mzansi six weeks before the concert but Nwachukwu only stayed for three days and left because he has a young family.

“Wings and his wife stayed and were supposed to be the eyes on the ground,” said Nwachukwu.

“I thought Gregory Wings, who is the CFO, had the company’s best interest at heart. He was the only liaison between the stadium, Gearhouse and Ticketpro. I would just get updates from him,” averred Nwachukwau.

He insists Wings has access to the company bank accounts, debit cards and could even use PayPal to charge the company’s account for whatever he would need to pay for.

“Things got interesting when he started doing club activations and picking up tickets for marketing purposes and different marketing events that I was never a part of where over 6 000 tickets had been issued by Ticketpro. I never picked up or received one ticket because I was not in SA.”

Nwachukwu, who didn’t want to disclose where he was, confirmed that he’s currently not in South Africa nor the US, but is travelling on business.

“I believe the Burna Boy show comes down to production. And it being such a big weekend in SA, I believe not working directly with the artist’s crew weeks before was a big hinderance. Due to the fact that production cost went from R3 million to over R12 million in the span of a week, we could not afford those costs,” said Nwachukwu.

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