On Sunday, FIJ reported how Emmanuel Adesoyin (popularly known as Mannie), a model casting manager, recruited an artist to act in a telecommunications advert but failed to pay him his wage.

Adesoyin was an agent the advert producers contacted to help them find casts. After the shoot, he collected the actors’ wages from the producers, spent it, and told the artist that the money was yet to arrive.

Following FIJ’s report, Grace Benjamin and Grace Abah, two actresses in their 40s, have told FIJ that they were among the casts Adesoyin hired and failed to pay.

They said they acted as market women in a one-day shoot and he was to pay them N30,000 each, but he kept giving them excuses.

READ MORE: Emmanuel Adesoyin Hired Artist for MTN Advert Then Used His Payment to ‘Sort Personal Issues’

“I worked with Mannie since March as a cast on an MTN advert, but up till now, I’ve not been paid,” Benjamin told FIJ. “It is not just me alone because we are four elderly women that he contacted for the job.

“He is not taking our calls or replying our messages after he asked for grace on three occasions to pay our money. He stopped responding totally.”

Benjamin said she later learned that the producers had paid Mannie, so she approached him about it but he demanded more time. On July 31, he told her, “I am doing all I can in your best interest and in the interest of everyone I have disappointed on this production.”

He asked for two more weeks but again failed to pay.

Both Benjamin and Abah later discovered that what Mannie offered them was less than the going rate for the shoot, but this was after the shoot was done.

When Abah spoke with FIJ, she said, “He is owing some of us, and he has refused to pay. He told us he used the money for personal issues.

“We later found out that other agents collected N50,000 per cast from the producers, and paid their casts N35,000, but Mannie lied to us that he collected N40,000 per cast, and we agreed he would pay us N30,000.”

FIJ made repeated calls to Adesoyin on Monday and Tuesday but he did not respond. He also ignored our message.