The owner of Western Lotto, Senator Buruji Kashamu has reacted to the allegations of alleged shady deal in the lotto industry.
His reaction was sent to CASEFILE by his Media aide Austin Oniyokor.
Below is the reply
It is laughable that the so-called lottery operators claimed that “they worked hard to popularise the games and make them the favourites of lotto players in Nigeria”.
Clearly, they are not the owners of the games. Pray, how do you popularise what is not yours?
The truth is: over the years, the lottery operators in Nigeria have been making money from the Ghana games without paying neither the Federal Government nor the Ghana’s National Lottery Authority.
That was the situation until Western Lotto Nigeria Limited approached the Ghanaian authorities and got the exclusive rights to the games.
In essence, owners of the Ghana games have appointed Western Lotto as their representatives in Nigeria and given it the exclusive rights to the games.
The rights does not exclude any interested operator from selling the games provided they go through Western Lotto – who are the sole rights owners to the Ghana games in Nigeria.
If anyone does not want to go through Western Lotto – in line with the best global practices and the judgement of the court – such a person is at liberty to stop selling the games.
It is not in any operator’s place to determine how Western Lotto will conduct its case.
They should return all the billions that they have deprived the government for over 20 years with their criminal and fraudulent dealings of illegally selling the Ghana games without making due remittances to the Federal Government.
