THRIVE AGRIC’S INVESTMENT SAGA OF 2020 (PART 3).
This issue has since been resolved. Read the concluding part here.
I must say that this saga with the Thrive Agric startup, founded by Uka Eje and Ayodeji Arikawe, has become one of the highlights of my week. I haven’t written in ages but Thrive Agric is changing that. For the first part of this story, read it here.
Thrive Agric has become a gift that keeps on giving, almost similar to my pineapple garden at home. The only difference is that my pineapples taste better.
This story is part of a series. You can read
Since my last update, Thrive Agric, founded by the duo, Uka Eje and Ayodeji Arikawe, has been nothing short of a disaster, tripping over itself and trying to sidestep landmines that it inadvertently planted.
After the release of the official statement by Thrive Agric on the 29th of September 2020, Thrive Agric has continually faced a lot of backlash from its investors all over social media with many granting interviews to media houses.
As expected, Thrive Agric spent time and likely money putting out those fires and killing those stories which resulted in some media houses (you know who you are) deleting their stories in exchange for whatever they might have been offered.
Interestingly, this hasn’t stopped the fervor with which aggrieved investors have gone after the Thrive Agric brand, evident in threads like these
Three days later, the erstwhile Thrive Agric’s twitter account, which we all had taken for dead, made a resurrection with this thread post
One of the tweets in that thread stated that
Some of those payments have come in but not nearly enough to meet our obligations to subscribers.
Yet, Thrive Agric and its founders, Uka Eje and Ayodeji Arikawe are still holding people’s money to ransom.
A few days later, on the 5th of October 2020, Uka Eje, the CEO called. For full disclosure, I must add here that I have been called by Thrive Agric agents severally without picking any of those calls.
In the short time we talked, I told him that as long as I wasn’t getting all my money paid that day, then I wasn’t interested in what he had to say.
I sincerely apologize to him (courtesy demands that) for my abruptness. But at this point, I am really not interested in any sob story or damage control they might be looking to achieve.
Hours after that call, an email invite for a zoom meeting had me laughing my heart out. What was funny about that?
Well, back when we were mellowly and pleadingly negotiating with Thrive Agric as a group, we asked for a Zoom meeting with them on many occasions.
Charles Isidi, the guy in charge of growth at Thrive Agric, categorically told us that it was against their policy to use Zoom as they were a Google Developers Launchpad company and could only use Google Meet. Excerpts of that conversation can be seen below.
Of course, like everything Thrive Agric, that meeting never happened.
For a company that effortlessly lies at the drop of a hat, it will be detrimental to me or any other investor out there to buy their story whichever way they try to spin it.
A day after that, Thrive Agric released a set of FAQs that can be found here. There was nothing new in what they said. But here are some screenshots that were of interest to me
Thrive Agric stated that they didn’t sell any farms during the April to July period. Which might be true but there’s evidence to the fact that Thrive Agric was going around soliciting funds privately in June/July from some investors asking them to invest in some wet farming scheme.
What do you think happened to those funds? Your guess is as good as mine. Chances are the few people that Thrive Agric paid off in June down to early September were probably beneficiaries of that sum.
On how they intend to pay back investors, Thrive Agric says that as they make sales now, they would pay back older investors first. How is this not a clear case of teeming and lading?
Teeming and Lading also known as short banking, delayed accounting and lapping, involves the allocation of one customer’s payment to another customer’s account to make the books balance, often to hide a shortfall or theft.
In essence, Thrive Agric wants to sell my September chicken and October rice and use the proceeds to pay back their March soybean investors leaving me high and dry (for a possible 24 months). Yet, some people don’t see anything wrong with that
Another point from their FAQs can be seen below
Permits for essential services were issued from the very beginning at the start of the lockdown. Like I said in my last article, express provision was made by the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, for the movement of agricultural products during the lockdown.
If it wasn’t so, how come Thrive Agric was able to do this in the middle of the lockdown as posted by them, back in March/April 2020, at the peak of the lockdown?
Or this by August 2020?
It’s no news that people are angry, anger that Thrive Agric keeps poking at.
Now, they want to talk and hope we will listen. They want to plead and hope we will understand. They want to apologize and hope we will forgive. Well, here is what I have to say, especially to Charles Isidi who likes to talk about shoes.
You are in our shoes now. We will not listen. We will not understand. We will not forgive. All we want is for Thrive Agric to pay us.
Pay us and maybe forgiveness will come.
Thrive Agric is yet to pay me a dime. And until they do, I will keep on updating this series. Look forward to the next update soon.
You can also add your voice to the Twitter hashtag #ThriveAgricPayYour Investors.
If you have been a victim of Thrive Agric, founded by Uka Eje and Ayodeji Arikawe, please leave a comment below telling us your experience.
This article is part of a series.
For Part 1, read it here.
For Part 2, read it here.
For Part 4, read it here.
For Part 5, read it here.
For Part 6, read it here.
This issue has since been resolved. Read the concluding part here.
