Comedy actor John Okafor (popularly known as Mr. Ibu) may be cussing himself out at the moment and wishing he took ill before the last February presidential election in Nigeria. He would have had so many politician visitors on his hospital bedside and the person who would have stolen the show, no doubt, would have been the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi.
Typical of Obi, he would have turned into an overnight ER for Mr. Ibu even as he smiled into different camera lenses. Obi would have tweeted so many times and tried to link Mr. Ibu’s ailment to the ‘failure’ of successive governments in Nigeria, even as he would have removed himself from the legion of past leaders in the Nigerian state. Obi would have told his Obedient supporters that had there been a good government, Mr. Ibu would not have fallen sick and even at that, the ailing actor would not have solicited for public help to offset his medical bills. The politician would not have stopped there. He would have regaled us all of statistics of actors in China, Japan and Malaysia who took ill and government instantly paid off their medical bills. That was Obi before the elections.
But the present day Obi has been so silent since Mr. Ibu made that video on his hospital bed calling on Nigerians to help him with the undisclosed medical bills to avoid his legs being amputated. As at when this piece was being written, I have checked on all major news outlets both on and offline, checked Obi’s verified Twitter (now X) account, he has not made any statement about Mr. Ibu. That is very unusual of him! Very, very unusual! Considering the fact also that Ibu and most Nollywood actors of Igbo descent were the ones that rallied round Obi, and even raised funds for him to prosecute his election.
Oh, I forgot! Obi does not give shi shi (he only collects shi shi) and Mr. Ibu, in this case, is asking for shi shi to treat himself of the sickness only him and the doctors as well as very close family members know about. So, one should not be surprised that Obi is not attempting to gain some form of political capital from the actor’s illness at the moment. Elections are over, and giving out shi shi is involved in this matter, so? Bros has every reason to maintain this loud silence presently.
Let us rest Obi’s case for now.
The wife of the ailing actor, Mrs. Stella Maris Ibu (in this present scenario, we will refer to her as ‘Mrs. Ibu’) came out a couple of days ago to debunk the claim of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) that the body had supported Mr. Ibu since his health travails began. Mrs. Ibu was responding to a recorded statement made by the guild’s Director of Communications, Ms Kate Henshaw, who was also reacting to claims that the body abandoned Mr. Ibu. I watched Henshaw’s video statement. There was no where she openly claimed the guild had given Mr. Ibu money. She was so smart that she refused to commit herself. She only said that the body won’t make public what it had done to support the actor, as “that is not the style” of the AGN. Very clever if you asked me, but I know, you won’t ask me.
But Mrs. Ibu came out to say the President of the AGN, Emeka Rollas and his executive are trying to chase clout (whatever that means) with the claim of support for her actor husband. I saw a news alert some minutes ago that Henshaw had replied Mrs. Ibu. The fire and return fire between them does not look like it will end soon, just like the ongoing war between Israel and the terrorist organisation, Hamas, in the middle East.
At what point did Rollas and Henshaw visit Mr. Ibu at the hospital? Before or after the video of Mr. Ibu soliciting for help surfaced online? And what did the AGN do (financially) to assist the actor which made Henshaw to run fiam to make her own video countering some people who accused the actors body of neglect of Mr. Ibu? Mrs. Ibu is the person who should know of any kind of support that will come to her husband and here we have her saying, there was none from the AGN! And Henshaw’s video recorded message did not specify the kind of support the body gave to Mr. Ibu, rather, she was evasive about it.
Someone is not telling the truth, and that person is not Mrs. Ibu, and I am not saying that Henshaw is lying either.
Well, it is refreshing to know that former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, through his foundation, Bukola Saraki Foundation, has paid the backlog of the actor’s hospital bills and when I read the statement, especially the concluding part, it threw open the doors for other “well meaning individuals and organisations” to come to the actor’s aid. That is to say, Bukola Saraki Foundation only paid the backlog of medical bills. Money for the next and or final stage of the treatment is still hanging.
And this brings us to the question: What is the nature of Mr. Ibu’s ailment? Why is the actor, the family hiding the nature of sickness from the public? You just come to the public space lying on an hospital bed and say; “please help me, I am sick. Don’t let them cut off my legs. I need money. I am Mr. Ibu”. And that is all? There is an Urhobo proverb, a very popular one, that says: “You don’t hide your nakedness from the person that would bathe your corpse when you eventually die”. Mr. Ibu wants public money and he is hiding the nature of his sickness from the public? Is someone trying to raise millions of Naira with this sickness? I said ‘someone’, I did not say it is Mr. Ibu or his wife or some family members o. Is that ‘someone’ being clever by not revealing the nature of the sickness so that the public will not have an idea of how much it will cost and maybe, it could be an amount just one good Samaritan could afford, which will close the doors for further donations from others? This is just a random thought, so discard it, because I have already done so.
In any case, the public would be more comfortable knowing the nature of the sickness and this would encourage donors to come forward. Trust is a scarce commodity in Nigeria and lest we forget, about two years or so ago, this same Mr. Ibu announced himself very ill and I watched a video of him claiming to have been healed by one of those popular Daddy G.O.s. He was seen in a video running round the pulpit of the pastor to confirm his healing. Did the same sickness rear its (ugly) head again? What is the sickness that seemed to have defied a ‘holy’ cure but now needs a medical solution?
Akpovi-Esade is a journalist, public affairs commentator and media lobbyist
