Health
Precious Gaza: The FOOL Story Of Misplaced N86m Love For A Nigerian Sickle Cell Patient
By Onyinyechukwu Chima
Accusations that Precious Gaza, a sickle cell patient and advocate, misused financial assistance intended for her Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) have caused an outrage of how one of the country’s most passionate sickle cell patients allegedly misplaced her benefactors who raised more than N86m for her and other patients. .
GWG.ng reports that Precious Gaza, a well-known sickle cell advocate has used her platforms to advocate for other sickle cell patients in Nigeria. She became well-known for her efforts as an advocate for the condition amassing thousands of followers, admiring her courage and honesty.
It all began on the 19th of March 2021, as Precious’ friends set out to raise $200,000 to cover the costs of her BMT surgery. A GoFundMe, campaign was initiated, and large amounts were collected both in foreign currency and in naira.
A total, £53,400.00 was raised via the GoFundMe platform, and 33,000,000.00 naira was raised domestically. Shockingly, two years later, Gaza is allegedly still on a waitlist and faces allegations of misappropriating ₦86.7M handed to her for the BMT procedure.
GWG.ng reports that as the campaign progressed, suspicion started to surface. This raised questions among her friends further initiating an investigation into her actions. On Tuesday, July 25th, Her friends who were the organizers of the donation released an official statement
Read Full Statement Here: https://t.co/23bRnMWP91
According to them, a total of £53,400.00 was raised via GoFundMe and ₦33 million was raised in naira. Gaza’s friends also claimed that as of July 5, 2023, she was in receipt of all the donations made via the GoFundMe and naira donation channels.
Her friends found that she was misusing the funds. They discovered that the money, intended for her medical procedure, was instead squandered on personal extravagances such as restaurants, spas, and possibly her birthday party of last year.
Gaza’s friends discovered, “The BMT funds had not only been spent but that Precious had also not been honest about what she had been spending the money on.”
They stated “We discovered that Precious had been spending the money since 2021; expenses on restaurants, spas local flights, and other reckless personal expenditure. We also found large chunks of money transferred to her personal bank account.”
Gaza’s friends claimed that they informed her family upon discovery that the donations handed over to her had not been used for the purpose they were intended. They claimed her family members promised to handle the matter internally.
However, while waiting for the situation to be rectified, the friends alleged that Gaza continued to “actively solicit more funds on TikTok” and they came to the conclusion that the matter had not been handled as promised by her family members.
According to them, when they tried to reach out on social media, they realized they had been blocked. She also “ignored prompts to do the right thing, claiming her family had taken control of her phone”.
In addition, Gaza’s friends claimed they learned she even succeeded in fooling her friends by pretending to be her at the rehab facility in a photo she downloaded from Google. While this con was exposed, Precious Gaza’s side of the story has made the situation even more mysterious.
In her statement, Gaza expressed her gratitude to her friends and family, acknowledging that without their efforts to launch an intervention to save her life, she would not still be alive.
She did, however, admit that she had been struggling with mental illness and specifically, schizophrenia and sadness. She also admitted in the statement that she had been reliant on prescribed opioids for a long time but had kept it a secret out of embarrassment and bad treatment at the hospital.
Gaza also agreed that it was important for her friends to clarify the circumstances behind the contributions made in support of her BMT surgery and also gave a breakdown of what she spent the money on which were; Flights to and fro the UK, for pre-fertilisation, consultation with doctors, Hospital bills in UK as a visitor and her deteriorating mental and physical health
See Gaza’s full side of the story:
However, GWG.ng reports that this expose has left bitter taste in the mouths of all those who felt deceived by Precious Gaza.
Dr. Olawale Ogunlana @olawalesmd
This Precious Gaza issue is the reason why @aproko_doctor and I have a clear stance at the @_The100kclub to NEVER make donations into private accounts. Most Nigerians aren’t accountable. When it is time, we will call out one other HbSS survivor scamming people on this app.
Somto Anierobi (ꜱɪʀᴇ)🇮🇪🇳🇬 @sire_sommy
This Precious (Salem) Gaza’s story is heartbreaking. Still, it shouldn’t discourage you from helping people when you see they are in need. Genuine people shouldn’t suffer because of a few bad eggs
Toyosi Godwin @ToyosiGodwin
The one part that stood out for me was where she sent a fake image. If that part is true, there is absolutely NOTHING I want to believe from her anymore. You lifted an image off google to deceive your friends. Wth man.
Call me Daddy Sky ❄️ @sky_jfk
My own is why did you give her control of the funds, you guys should have acted as trustees whereby you’d be the one be disbursing to the hospital directly for any treatment that was needed. Handing over the funds to her was the biggest mistake here for me.
Detola@Detolah_
Firstly, Kudos to y’all. Sometimes people don’t deserve the grace that we show them. Secondly, were lomo yen, oye ki gbogbo yin dawojo lu agannigan ara e jade ni, ke wa fi £65 toku yen gbe lo si hospital. Osinwin omo.
JuJu @Naijasinglegirl
Jesus Christ! I have no words. This issue is 10x worse than I imagined.
Sunday | Idan of Design & Web content ✨ @suneripapa
Omo. I don’t know what to say. This is heartbreaking for people who believed her, love her and want the best for her. This is not how to repay people for being good to you.
Esther Roli Idundun @esther_roli
You can never know the true behavior of some people untill you test them with money.
Pal @awopejo
Alot of people with the same health issue or even worse are looking for this same opportunity and circle of friends but their you are, hnmmm
Gaza’s friends expressly said that the fundraising campaign was not the work of a church or Christians wishing to undertake charity work; it was just the work of all of them (Her friends).
They claim that even though much about their friend has been revealed as a result of the investigation into the BMT, they still wish their her well and hope that she has the operation so she can be free of sickle cell.
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