All sorts of emotions have formed a trail around the life of John ‘Mr Ibu’ Okafor on the build-up to recovery. There has been grief about having his leg amputated after surgery in early November, and then there was intimate bonding with a colleague at the intensive care unit that was hosting him, the chaotic infighting ongoing in the actor’s family over a right to control the donations he has received.

When it became clear that an ailment that had befallen him while on set at a Nollywood filming was going to linger for a while, Mr Ibu had to send out an S.O.S. through his Instagram to attract Nigerians to his aid. Since that moment in October when he made the appeal for assistance, there has been so much of it in both sympathising and financial terms. All that money is now the source of a problem which has led Mr Ibu’s wife, Stella Okafor, and his daughter Jazmine to enter messy public spats.

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There was a feeling of being marginalised in Stella Okafor’s Instagram post of Sunday, 12 November which had the main caption: “Evil and lies travel faster but truth always catches up and overcome.” Shared in the post were accounts of her lack of involvement in keeping track of inflows happening through public contributions.

According to Mrs Okafor, “The N1m donation they talked about was paid into my account on my husband’s instruction (and in his presence) to offset some bills at the home front. I don’t understand why Jazmine, a complete stranger should be dragging me over my family matter.”

She further said “I do not have access to the main Access [Bank] account where people make donations. It is being secretly controlled by Jazmine yet she is cooking up all sorts of lies and propaganda against me in order to keep absolute control of the account. How she manipulated her way and took control of that account is [a] story for another day.”

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But there are other sides to this story. The frontal shows Jazmine the daughter in a Punch News chat somewhat tight-lipped and not wanting “to be involved with the online drama” for the time being, while the rear reveals Daniel Okafor, Mr Ibu’s second son and also his chosen next-of-kin. He was willing to speak with the publisher to whom he confirmed the absence of truth “in what Stella Maris [Mrs Okafor] has been sharing online.”

He added that his half-sister, “Jazmine does not have access to that account; I have access to it. I am the signatory to the account and my father’s next of kin.”

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.