With an acting career that has spanned four decades, he is still waxing stronger having made comic roles as easy as ABC. John Okafor, popularly known as Mr Ibu, arguably the funniest character on the movie scene speaks with DUSTAN AGHEDO about his early days and other sundry issues like his meeting Jackie Chan and proposed movie with Eddie Murphy Recalling the movie you starred in, “Mr Ibu,” did you keep this movie title as your stage name or it’s actually your real name?
It is my grandfather’s name. He was the greatest comedian I had ever seen in my life. It is just Ibu but because Andy Chukwu was writing a story about me, he started adding the Mr to it. He was using Ibu initially but later added the title to it, saying the title would be Mr John Ibu. I had to struggle to remove the John. Having been in the Nigerian motion picture industry for so long, can you recall when you were first on set? The journey started December 3, 1978 and that was on a Sunday. There was this soap opera in Benin, Edo state, I used to go to the shooting location and watch them shoot and transmit live. I just came as one of the extras one day because sometimes there could be shortage of manpower. That was how I came in, got an opportunity and after that day I have never looked back, slacked nor lost interest.
The journey started December 3, 1978 and that was on a Sunday. There was this soap opera in Benin, Edo state, I used to go to the shooting location and watch them shoot and transmit live. I just came as one of the extras one day because sometimes there could be shortage of manpower. That was how I came in, got an opportunity and after that day I have never looked back, slacked nor lost interest.
From that year until now, what do you think has changed in the industry? For one, piracy came in and crept into the very fabric of the movie industry. A lot of other things came in too and shrank the growth and speedy rise of the industry. Homosexuality came in, lesbianism came in and a whole lot of people in the industry became members of these devilish acts to bring the spirit down. I came out and told them that this kind of spirit kills the spirit of the movie industry because all it does is to come close to somebody that actually devotes time for the industry, to make the industry grow through their respective offices and companies, making these persons they come close to start second-guessing what they are offering. I said to them, if you are indulging in this kind of devilish group, it won’t work and because of that some slacked. Nollywood is my main constituency, so when things are happening on my watch that speaks contrary to what the industry is trying to portray then somebody has to speak up. But we still have a lot of people that take the industry very seriously, delving into the business and projecting a better name for the industry.
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