Famous actor and comic star John Ikechukwu
Okafor, popularly known as Mr. Ibu is one
entertainer whose face and acts are antidotes for
the depressed.
For almost three decades, the actor, comedian, and
singer has endlessly dazzled and wowed comedy
and movie buffs with his hilarious persona, making
him one of the most popular acts in the nation’s
entertainment industry globally known as
Nollywood.
However, even though Mr. Ibu’s life revolves around
entertainment and making people happy, the
Enugu State-born thespian is a man with a bleeding
heart and many hidden pains.
In this no-holds-barred and exclusive encounter,
Mr. Ibu, for the first time revealed the agonies he
went through in the hands of his ex wife, whom he
alleged made several attempts on his life and that of
his immediate family.
“My ex wife and her cohorts planned and
kidnapped my wife and child; they were later
released after 10 days... That child later died a year
after through poisoning. The fact later came out,
but I don’t want to act on it now; I don’t want to
massacre anybody…”, he told Entertainment
Express.
The humour merchant and star of numerous
blockbusters in this riveting chat also spoke
extensively on other germane issues, including his
battle with poverty, encounter with homosexuals,
women and more. The interview, refreshing and
fascinating, is a bird’s eye view and also a close up
on Mr. Ibu’s world.
Let’s start with your recent trip to the US, what
took you there?
Over the period, I was busy with a preparation for
my American trip. I went there (US) for a movie
which is a collaboration between Nollywood and
Hollywood production. It’s a production that
belongs to Nollywood. Basically, I’m the man at the
helm of the production; I’ll play the lead role for the
work. For the first time some celebrated Hollywood
actors will be coming to Nigeria to make a movie.
The title of the movie is Ibu Runs Mad in America. All
through the movie I will be playing the role of a mad
man- both the Nigerian and American parts of it.
You are used to playing the roles of an imbecile and
sometimes a mad man; what efforts do you always
make to fit into such characters.
The issue is that once you are a good actor, you can
go ahead and interpret any character no matter
how tedious. The role of an imbecile which I have
played in the past in a movie entitled Agony is far
different from the role of a mad man. Apart from
bringing in my ingenuity as an actor to interpret any
role, I also ask God for idea=s to creatively interpret
it beyond the ordinary.
While most of your colleagues are fading, you’ve
remained evergreen in the industry; what is the
secret?
That is what we call consistency in the profession.
For you to remain relevant after many years in any
profession, there must be element of consistency.
There must be something spectacular about you
and you must be the kind of person that always
seeks to improve. That is what I do every day, trying
to improve myself, and I believe that is exactly what
has been keeping me, and more especially, the
grace of God.
Are you not worried by the emergence of many
talents and younger faces in the industry which
has practically displaced most of your
contemporary?
It has only displaced those who are not consistent
and don’t know what they are doing. If you are in
business or topping your class in school, the
admission of new students should not be a threat
to you. Movie-making is not like football that you
abandon whenever you get old. In this industry,
one should even get better as he grows older.
For your fans that don’t know how the acting
journey started for you, can you share with us
how it all began?
I can’t really pinpoint anything physical that lured
me into acting. However, I can say that my getting
into acting was all about a spiritual realization.
When I was growing up, I lived with my grandfather
who happened to have had an uncanny sense of
humour. I enjoyed him more than I enjoyed myself
today.
I started acting on December 3, 1978. The issue is
that I had never seen myself coming in front of the
camera. I was initially involved in Continuity, not
until the directors and producers started
persuading me to come on board to act. They saw
my interpretation of movie roles to be better and
more original. It wasn’t as if I was running away
from acting, I only wanted to specialize in my
Continuity job, being behind the cameras. So at a
point I started acting once in a while. I later asked
myself, ‘Ibu, wetin you dey wait, go and concentrate
on the thing’. So I took the advantage of the
opportunity from my Producers and Directors who
loved me so much. Even when I was in elementary
school, whenever I commit any offence that
deserved punishment, the way I would act, my
moves would make everybody to start laughing. By
so doing, I was escaping from lots of punishments
in the school. Even now that I’m seriously into the
game, I still go back to some of those things I used
to do in the past; I only refine it to suit this
generation.
Does that mean your grandfather introduced
you to comedy/acting?
My grandfather was a better comedian than myself.
I started living with him when I was four. I kept
being marveled by the way he humorously related
to people. He was good with herbs so he was
always treating people with ailments. I saw his
patients laughing in the face of their agonies, just
because of the jokes he cracked. He was not a
native doctor, but he knew and believed in the
power of the leaves. So I used to stay very close and
listen attentively to him. I later began using the
name he was called which is Ibu. He used to answer
all manners of funny names including Nshi (shit),
Otiokpo (boxer), Ibu, etc. So before I knew it, the
man’s attitude hypnotised me. I became stupid
(laughter). It was the stupidity in him that he
imparted on me and he had everything that could
make you laugh. And funny enough, because of the
materials he imparted on me, sometimes people
will begin to read meanings into my movements,
my face, my eyes, whenever people look at me even
without me doing anything they will start laughing.
That’s just the trouble I’m into today. I can’t walk on
the streets. Living with my grandfather rubbed off
on me and as I got on in life, I began noticing that
uncanny sense of humour in me. This realization,
which to me is spiritual, is what got me into acting,
particularly comedy.
When you got your first movie role, what quality
of yours was responsible for it?
I remember that my first commercial work was an
Igbo movie shot in onitsha, it was produced by
Solomon Eze. In that work, we had about 24 people
contesting for that role. The issue was that each
time I came out to read my lines, before I even say a
word, everybody, including the producer would
start laughing. All other of my colleagues still got it
well, but the executive producer and other persons
in charge of the production all said it should be me
or no other person. Sometimes, I would be asking
myself ‘how did I do it’. That is why acting has to
come from the inside, if you fake it you might not go
far. If you don’t have the content that can make
people laugh, forget it, you are not a comedian.
Are you saying that the hilarious aspect of you is
natural?
Are you also saying I’m naturally stupid? I didn’t
start acting from my mummy’s womb, so it can’t be
natural. But what I do is to properly interpret my
roles. It’s that property of proper interpretation that
made me the Ibu I am today. I feel if I must do
anything I must do it well. I don’t do it to favour
anybody, I just do it the way it comes to me. Names
I answer today are just too many because I’ve
almost answered all kinds of names in movies
including ‘Bone, Flesh, Nshi, Shit, Ikwe’, several
names like that.
So do you see yourself as more of a comedian?
I see myself as a versatile actor. It’s just that this
stereotype thing has enveloped my person, but
generally I can act anything.
With this your naturally funny personality, how do
you cope with such serious roles as that of a bank
manager?
I’ve done a number of such serious roles
in the past. But the issue is that will fans see me as a
bank manager in such movie? They will be
expecting me to do one or two funny things in the
course of that movie, because there is a trade mark
already. If I play the role of a Bank Manager the way
it ought to be played, some people would start
wondering, what is Ibu doing. They will see me as
faking it. That is the problem. As for me, I can act all
roles. But I don’t want to keep them away from the
‘me’ they know. The only thing I try to change is the
fact that whenever I act, there must always be
something new, something different from what
they’ve either seen from me or from any other
actor. When I handle any script, another of me will
appear. The movie we are about to release-Ibu
Runs Mad in America-is another thing entirely; you
will see me breasting another mad white woman
with feeding bottle. All these things come up when
I’m acting. They are not in the script, it comes
naturally.
So many up-and-coming actors are struggling to
rise to the top, what were the major challenges you
faced while trying to rise to the top?
I don’t think this young generation can pay the
sacrifices I paid in the past. I used to trek on daily
basis from Ajao Estate to Festac. It was a daily
trekking for me except when there was no
auditioning or rehearsal.
Why were you trekking?
I was trekking round Lagos because after
auditioning there would be about a week or two
weeks rehearsals; any day you didn’t report for
rehearsals might be the end for you in that movie;
because there were so many others waiting to take
over. But even whenever there was no production
that I was involved in, I used to go there to see if I
could see one or two producers. My slippers then
had lots of holes (laughter). There was no need
again for slippers because my toes were always
touching the ground even when I was wearing the
slippers.
Was your family that poor?
My family was the poorest in my village. When I lost
my father, breeze pulled down our house and we
became tenants in our own village. That was
Umunekwu Village in Eziokwe, NKanu West Local
Government Area of Enugu State.
Are you the first born?
We were eight in number; five men and three
women. We were given a room in our maternal
home; there we all slept at night as if we were in a
cell. One leg here, the other leg there! (laughs).
What was your most memorable experience
while growing up?
Once you are poor you are poor. You will be forced
to see so many things from another angle. My
father stopped training me when I was still very
small. He died in 1975. That was how we became
fathers to each other and to our mum. I was
training myself in secondary school. I was doing all
sorts of odd jobs. I sold fire wood, I did hair
dressing, I was assembling wooden crates of
minerals, I was involved in the snapping of wait-
and-take pictures; I was a butcher; if you want to kill
a goat, cow, pig, etc, I would do it for you, cut it to
your desired sizes, and take it to your place. That
was how I was surviving. It was from those petty
jobs that I got money to see myself through school.
My elder brother later came in when he began
earning money. When I was picking up my
admission form to study Mass Communication at
the Institute of Management and Technology, IMT,
Enugu, my brother told me to choose part time,
because it was going to be hard if I should enter full
time. There was no time for rest because it was
struggle all through; struggle to go to school and
struggle to feed ourselves and our mum. We lost
two members of the family along the way. My
brother, I had a poverty-ridden growing up
experience.
In the face of all these difficulties, what was your
consolation, and what served as the catalyst that
propelled you to limelight?
I believed that one day there would be a turn
around. I did Karate; I was teaching Karate on the
black board at the Federal Government College,
Onitsha; just to put food in the stomach. At a point I
even went into boxing. My intention of going into
boxing was because boxing was becoming lucrative
then. Unfortunately, the first day I entered the
boxing ring, people around had to carry me home
(laughter); the idiot that was my opponent nearly
killed me (laughter). That was how my boxing career
ended. My fellow man used hand and scattered my
face. Nobody told me to quit boxing.
Apart from the Ibu we see on the screen, who is
the real John Okafor?
John Okafor is a tactical, calculated and an
organized human being who does his work strictly
without offending anybody. If I offend anybody in
the course of my work, I used to apologize once I
notice. But if you offend me and you are claiming
right, I would only go my way. The fact is that anger
is a small madness. When I’m angry I don’t do
anything. If one does anything when angry, what it
would cause could be more than what caused the
anger. So before you see me nagging or angry with
anybody, that person must have pressed me
against the wall.
How do you let people know you are serious
whenever you intend doing serious business?
I don’t have to put off people by trying to be serious.
I always want to make them see me as that comedy
man; this allows me to carry them along even when
I’m doing such serious business.
At what point did you see yourself as having
been financially liberated?
The issue is that nobody is rich in this industry, but
we are not poor. We are not hungry. The reason we
are the way we are is simply because we are still
lacking in a whole lots of things. Don’t you think it’s a
shame that as big as Nollywood is we still don’t have
a secretariat? Not even a film village, for a giant of
Africa like Nigeria. It’s a shame that no government
has made it a priority to set up one or two structure
and call it film village. Yet government collects forty
thousand naira (N40, 000) for each movie on
censorship. If you produce up to part four, that is
about N160, 000. With all the impact the system has
created, government is not looking at the industry.
Now we have a deadly virus called piracy. These
pirates are still Nigerians; all they do is to wait for us
to sweat and shoot movies; they even eat more
money than the owners of the work. Tell me, why
won’t God punish them? God will punish anybody
anywhere that has an interest to reap where he
never sowed. Why can’t government set up a body
to manage piracy? They set up a body for
corruption (EFCC); they set up a body to manage
fake drugs (NAFDAC), why not piracy? I still believe
that one day, somebody will hear our cry.
What mistake of your past would you love to
correct?
The past for me is already a past. All I look forward
to are the things ahead. All the mistakes I have
made in the past are now in my past. And I don’t
regret my past. The only thing I will never pray to
happen to me again is the kind of poverty I
experienced while growing up.
Wouldn’t you have loved to remain married to
one woman?
I have come to understand that marriage issue is a
spiritual thing. You will suffer if you marry who is
not your wife. I keep telling the young generation,
pray if you want to marry. If you are not good in
prayer, learn it whenever you want to marry. As I
talk to you now, about 18 girls and 18 men married
through me, they trusted me and I looked for
partners for them; till today, they are still living
happily. If you marry who is not your wife as a man,
you are finished. I’m talking out of experience
because I have experienced a failed marriage. I
don’t want to go into it because now I’m happily
married again.
Does it mean that your first wife was not really
meant for you?
The answer is yes.
Was it infatuation that lured you into the
marriage?
I was lured into the marriage by my mum and my
younger sister. She was trying to consolidate an old
friendship the family had with the other family; not
minding the lady’s attitude and so many other
things. I don’t want to go into that.
When the marriage crashed, we felt it was the usual
celebrity kind of marriages that don’t last-
I think I’m the best husband in the world; when you
marry good wife you will “chop beans and mess in
your house.”
Basically, what attracts you to a woman?
I like good things. I like natural women. If you are
black you must remain black and if you are light
skinned you must remain one. I don’t like this idea
of women putting silicon to increase their breasts; I
don’t like such fake women. As Mr. Ibu is ugly now, I
won’t go for a surgery to enhance my face. I also like
slim tall girls with good hips and moderately
endowed breast-wise (Laughter). My kind of girl
must be flexible with her body and dresses smartly.
I don’t like heavy weight champions, I don’t like
loquacious women. I like clean girls because I can’t
condone odours. Odours from women get me
angry.
So how do you cope with the large number of
female admirers that flock around you?
Women will always admire and flock around any
man who is successful in his chosen career. This is
normal and found in all spheres, not just movie
stars like me. I’m happy that a lot of the female folks
have fallen in love with my acts.
All I do is to play with them and diplomatically relate
with them. But ‘I dey run o!’.
I understand you are running because you are
married; how many were you able to ‘combine’ as a
single man then?
I’ve always had a policy that has been guiding me.
Upon my ugliness, I’ve always had a choice.
How does the first woman you had a romantic affair
with as a wretched man see you now that you are
famous and rich?
The very first woman in my life. I think her name is
Jen, from Delta state. We were dating until I got
admission to IMT. I left to process my admission,
but by the time I came back after two months she
was already pregnant for another man. That was
how the relationship ended, after four years.
How does she see you now?
I’ve not seen her for some time; she must have
been married by now. She must have been looking
for means to reach me anyway. The affair was as far
back as 1993.
Hope we won’t hear any story of divorce again
from you and your new wife
We pray for devil’s work not to come to pass;
because we don’t need it. Many things have
happened in this marriage. My ex wife and her
cohorts planned and kidnapped my wife and child,
they were later released after 10 days. That child
later died a year after through poison. The fact later
came out, but I don’t want to act on it now; I don’t
want to massacre anybody. Only God in heaven
knows. I call my current wife a first class wife
because I haven’t encountered so many women like
her, I saw something different in her. If you see how
my wife treats me, you will be surprised.
How were they eventually released?
It’s now a past thing; I paid the ransom. I dropped
the money where they asked me to drop it. I did
and they asked me to go and I left. It was 12 hours
after that my wife and son came home.
Does it mean you actually parted on sad note
with your ex?
Definitely, but I don’t want to go into it. You will be
surprised the day you will hear what happened.
We heard that your separation was because her
family wasn’t in support of the marriage.
You will hear it when the day comes. I don’t want to
massacre anybody; I don’t want to spoil anybody.
God has everybody’s case file.
We also thought the kidnap case was because of
your wealth.
No, it was planned. I was even thinking they were
going to kill them. Thank God they were released
after I paid certain amount of money.
Why are you not fully involved in the activities of
Actors Guild of Nigeria?
Some of the members are diabolic; that is why I’m
not fully involved. I’m not interested in anything
involving fetish practices.
It‘s widely believed that there are homosexuals
in the industry; you must have encountered
them, so share your experience with us.
One idiot came toasting me o! That is true as funny
as it would sound. Something is happening in this
Nollywood. These up and coming actors are being
used by some of the established producers who are
gays. If you want to get a job as an up and coming
actor, you must sleep with them. You must be
sexed to get a job. We are no longer in the era of
the female actresses suffering from sexual
harassment; it is now man to man. Abomination!
God has a lot of things to judge. Man to woman is
also bad, but we can easily overlook that. Why not
put your penis in the right place. There is something
spiritual in that thing (frowns). Why would you bend
down for one idiot to penetrate you, thereby
destroying your future? You left God and bowed to
devil…by the time you get up, you get up as a
woman, while the idiot that penetrated you walks
away majestically! Their payback is sudden death,
and it keeps happening.
What else would you have become if you were
not an actor?
‘I don try boxing, e no work, I no go fit run, I no go
fit play football. Militancy na attempted suicide. God
knows very well that I would have been something
else. I dey suspect say I for dey village dey drag
land’ (Laughs).
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