The national president of Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) Emeka Rollas has said that the family of actor John Okafor, popularly known as Mr Ibu, was using his health for scam.
Mr Rollas said this in a recent interview with QEDNG, where he detailed how the guild was made aware of the scam during police investigations.
He said: “When the case of Ibu came up, I cannot reel out what we have done for Ibu from the position of the guild. I know that the chairman of the patrons’ board Ned Nwoko at some point kept Ibu at the Turkish hospital in Abuja for months and paid. As at the point when Ibu’s case was becoming recurrent, I let the family and the people I was close to, know that you have to do this or do that for you to continue but they seemed to be quick to rush to the internet because everybody just want the soft money.
“It was during investigations which I involved the police that we found out that they were just using the man to scam. Today, somebody is gaming to collect big funds and we have said no, this is a property to take care of Ibu’s health, nobody should have access to this fund because it’s public funds, they must know how their money is being spent. So the police are involved fully now.
The president also stated that the AGN has instructed that no one should have access to Mr Ibu’s account unless it is for the actor’s health.
“AGN says ‘nobody should access funds unless it is for Ibu’s health’, if you didn’t have a car before Ibu became sick, please manage yourself as you have been managing before until Ibu gets well. If Ibu now gets well and stands on his feet and anybody around him needs a car, he should be able to authorise the car or authorise any kind of withdrawal.
“With police investigations, we are also aware that there were some remittals from that same account by persons who were supposed to concentrate more on taking care of Ibu. All that, we have stopped as a guild because this is just want they want to rush to,” he said.
Addressing religious leaders using actors for “public ridicule,” Emeka continued: “We have also had senior members of the public, either from the religious people who have often used our members to create a kind of public ridicule. You bring a sick actor who has large fans and you put large sums of money on him and use it to say that you are helping the actor.
“And these are people that you would go and meet ordinary and tell them that you have some actors that are sick and we need you to show support, either put money in our trust fund and they will rebuff you and the moment there is an actor who seems to have clout within the social media space runs and says he’s sick, you carry millions and put on the person’s hand and begin to say ‘we are helping the actor’ when you didn’t get a medical report of the actor, you didn’t find out what was actually needed.”
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Mr Ibu’s health struggles made the news in October when a video of the actor soliciting for help was released on his official Instagram page.
The movie star celebrated his 63rd birthday in a hospital in Lagos on October 17.
He revealed in a video posted on Instagram that he needed financial support so his leg would not be amputated.
His leg was, however, cut off in November.
