The mad rush for undeserved awards and recognition by some media personalities, entertainers as well as public figures will cease in this country henceforth. Read on.
Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie has been trolled on social media after he received a fake award at the 2020 Global Leadership Service to Humanity Awards organized by one Dr Kwame Owusu Fordjour.
Loud mouth radio presenter Captain Smart and other notable Ghanaian personalities were also honoured at this shadow award ceremony held on Friday 28th August, 2020 in Accra for their accomplishments in their various fields of endeavour.
The awardees including TV3’s Berla Mundi, musician D-Black and NPP’s Chairman Wontumi were presented with plaques of ‘UN Kofi Annan Excellence Awards’ which sought to draw a link between the scheme, the United Nations and late UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
Those who received the prestigious award shared the honour with their fans on social media, little did they know that the award scheme was fraud.
A Twitter user exposed Dr Kwame Owusu Fordjour now nicknamed Dr UN as a scammer who is hiding behind the UN and Kofi Annan Foundation brands to give fake awards to celebrities and public officials.
Speaking in his first media interview after the social media lampooning, Dr UN told JoyNews on Friday that his award scheme is genuine.
Defending the credibility of the award, he said in the interview closely monitored by Kasatintin.com that:
‘I am surprised because this is an open thing that we just held. If anybody has a problem with me or our institution, they should have contacted us for clarification.
I have always been an advocate for development, excellence and in honouring others and attaching ourselves to global icons and leadership we bring them out’.
But Mr Fordjour is not out of the hook yet.
There is another allegation against him of how he attempted to defraud some rural and community banks a decade ago under the pretext of awarding them the Millennium Achievers’ Gold Award.
Media reports claim that Dr UN asked the rural and community banks to pay GH¢200 each as participation fee and to submit a 10-minutes documentary of their projects to commence publicity on various media networks as a prelude to the event.
The reports further alleged that ‘The bank’s officials handed over Fordjour to the police when he went there in response to an invitation to come for further discussion on the project’.
Check out the full list of celebrities and public officials who received the supposed fake awards at the 2020 Global Leadership Service to Humanity Awards below:
