(close pidgin)
open up xterm and type "cd .purple" and then "rm status.xml".
all the old status messages should be gone at the next pidgin startup.

most linux distributions use init.d for those kind of work.
maemo uses startup - event.d.
there you have to create a startup-file like this:
(you can name the script whatever you want - for example "pidginautostart")
this file you have to place in: /etc/event.d
(the path would be: /etc/event.d/pidginautostart )

just chill.
maybe a little bit cleaning up would help.
if you aren't lazy and haven't got any problems to type in all of your accounts again then just try following:

(close pidgin)
open up xterm and type "cd .purple" and then "rm *xml".
(your logs aren't affected by doing this)
your pidgin should be pretty virgin at the next start and will ask you for your accounts.

if you are lazy with creating accounts, you have to type some more lines in xterm:
1. cd .purple
2. mv accounts.xml accounts.bak
3. rm *xml
4. mv accounts.bak accounts.xml

if your pidgin doesn't work correctly after this you can try to uninstall it completely via the program manager.
after uninstalling it, open up xterm and type "rm -r .purple".
this will delete all of your preferences including your log-files.
(if you want to save your log-files then do a "cp -r .purple/logs pidgin/" first)
then install pidgin again, fire it up and recreate your accounts. it should be fine now - everything else wouldn't make any sense ^^.
(if you saved your logs in the way i described above you can restore them in xterm by "cp -r pidgin/logs .purple/" and "rm -r pidgin/")

have fun (: