Jerome Jawoko, a fisherman from Masasa Landing Site in Jinja East in Uganda who was ready to marry decided to solicit for funds from his family and friends towards his wedding.
According to Africacelebrities, Jerome, try as he may, the people he trusted to support him financially for his wedding disappointed him woefully.
In January this year, Jerome arranged for fundraising meetings which he disguised as wedding preparatory meeting with his friends but proceeds from the meeting proved futile.
After several meetings, which he had only two to three people in attendance, no one pledged to support and let alone make cash contributions.
Out of frustration with his relatives and friends for lack of response to his call for wedding contribution, Jerome decided not to bother them any further. Instead, he tricked them to contribute in grief.
According to Jerome, he was hurt to discover that when a friend died after a road accident in April, contributions flooded in for his burial.
“Many of those we sent direct messages asking for their help in seeing to the success of his wedding refused to contribute, they didn’t help when he was in hospital breathing his last but came in droves once he was dead. What kind of society is this?” he said.
When Jerome started looking for financial support towards his wedding, his close friends started distancing themselves from him.
“I was being blue-ticked on WhatsApp as if I was some debt collector. Some friends even left WhatsApp groups I was in just to be as far away as possible even on the cyber space,”he said.
According to one of the friends, Olum Achak, who helped to fake Jerome’s death, his friend started a WhatsApp group for his wedding.
“We added many close friends and relatives but after one left the group, others started leaving. Some said they should have been consulted first before being added on the group,” Olum Achak said.
“The few who stayed on didn’t contribute even a chat. They stayed permanently in silent mode”, Olum added.
Out of anger and disappointment from what was happening, Jerome and his two accomplices, Okumu Achak and Peter Mpengere, agreed to fake his death to draw the people out.
There were no surprises as friends, relatives and well-wishers started donating cash. In just a day, the group had received more than Shs7 million in cash.
“The same people who were running away from us came running with cash to us. They were willing to pay for a nice coffin of Shs2 million but not even 5k when I was asking for wedding pledges,” Jerome said.
Source: mywedding.co.ug
