Nigerian Embassy In Sweden Disowns Nigerian Swedish Agriculture Trade Fair

Mrs. Brakner, heads the NSTFG

There are strong indications that the planned Nigerian Swedish International Agricultural Trade Fair, which has been scheduled to take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, may have suffered damaging setbacks.

P.M. EXPRESS reliably gathered that the claims by the organisers of the trade fair, Nigerian Swedish Trade Fair Group (NSTFG) headed by Mrs. Mary Brakner, a Nigerian woman, that the Nigerian Embassy in Sweden was allegedly involved in the organisation of the event is false, as latest news from Sweden indicates that the Nigerian Embassy has nothing to do with the event.

The trade fair, which was earlier scheduled to hold from 29-30 October, 2019, but later rescheduled to 26-28 November, 2019, may bring more troubles to all members of the NSTFG going by the action of the Nigerian Embassy to distance itself from the event.

Bubble bust for the organisers when many of Nigerian participants could not get visas to travel to Sweden for the purpose of attending the agric. fair after each participant (visitor) had paid registration fee of 150 USD, which was converted to N55,000 by the organisers, while each exhibitor paid 200 USD.

The organisers, it was alleged have been using the name of the Embassy of Nigeria in Sweden as one of the partners, and have been visibly mentioned the name in all promotional materials for the event. It was gathered that because of the name of the Nigerian Embassy, many unsuspecting Nigerians saw the trade fair as a credible event, hence the rush to register.

When none of the registered participant was given the Schengen visas to travel to Sweden, many of them began to suspect a foul play.

In an effort to ascertain the level of involvement of Nigerian Embassy in the whole saga, one of the participants, who craved for anonymity, decided to petition the Nigerian Ambassador to Sweden, Ambassador Musa Ilu Mohammed last weekend.

“I was so excited with the involvement of Nigerian Embassy in Sweden, as this gave me no doubt about the credibility of the event. The involvement of the Embassy of Nigeria in Sweden was well circulated in the promotional materials for the trade fair, the brochures, fliers, the website- (www.nigeriansswedishtradefair.com), social media, radio adverts and newspaper reports,” the petition reads.

“Your Excellency, this is so sad considering the perceived level of involvement of Nigerian Embassy in the organisation of the trade fair and the scam was perfectly hatched from the beginning to fail. How will the organisers issue invitation letter and other supporting documents up till 13^th of October just 15 days to the event not mindful the time to process a Schengen visa?

“I realised that I was not the only one that fell into this scam, over 52 people in the list fell to this fraudulent arrangement from the organisers and other Nigerians who would have thought that Nigerian Embassy’s involvement and the marketing narrative put forward by the organisers to deceive unsuspecting Nigerians are real,” the petitioner said.

But while replying the petitioner through an email sent through the official address of the embassy, Ambassador Mohammed said: “This is to acknowledge the receipt of your email dated 9th November, 2019 with regard to the petition against the Nigerian-Swedish International Agricultural Trade Fair which was allegedly scheduled to hold in Gothenburg, Sweden.

“The Embassy would like to affirm to be an arm of the Nigerian Government and therefore does not engage in private/social promotions of this nature except only to register presence as an invited entity not as a Collaborator.

“While we regret the sad experience you faced, the Embassy is reiterating that extensive contacts/enquiry should always be made to ascertain the level of the Embassy’s involvement with respect to any programme invited. Besides, the Embassy advice that you take whatever measure deemed necessary under Nigerian law to recover your money.

“To this end, the Embassy is ever ready to welcome and answer any enquiry/verification regarding the bilateral relations between our dear country, Nigeria and the countries of jurisdiction (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland).

“My plan is to do the necessary things to get my money back from the organisers. I am ready to go as far as petition all relevant agencies both locally and internationally that are saddled with the responsibility of handling this kind of crime,” said the aggrieved participant who petitioned the Nigerian Embassy in Sweden.

P.M. EXPRESS reports that the trade fair is being organised by the NSTFG in collaboration with a Nigeria-based Fesco Agalu Enterprises Nigeria Limited and some other Swedish-based organisations. The Nigeria office of the NSTFG is situated at No. 26A Abiodun Shobajo Street, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos with the Sweden address at Övre Kaserngården 6, Post code 41528, Göteborg, Sweden.

Efforts to get reactions from the organisers, especially the CEO of the NSTFG, Mrs Brakner who is popularly known as Yeye Oge in Sweden, who is said to be the President of Nigerian Community in Gothenburg, Sweden, proved abortive as no response was received after this newspaper sent an enquiry to the official email address of the NSTFG Saturday.

But responding to the same email sent to NSTFG, one of the Directors of Fesco Agalu Enterprises Nigeria Limited, a partner to NSTFG, disclosed that “Nigeria Swedish Trade Fair Group approached my company Fesco Agalu Enterprises Nig Limited to be a partner in organizing the fair. Mrs Mary Brakner told us that she got our contact through  a senior officer at the Nigerian Embassy in Stockholm . She also informed us that the Embassy of Nigeria and indeed the Ambassador,  Musa Ilu Muhammed are wholly involved. If the need arise, I am ready to make available emails, whatsapp messages and even call logs of our communications as evidences.