Ace filmmaker, Kunle Afolayan, has said that the “anti-igbo” accusation levelled against him by popular actor, Mike Ezuruonye, is as a result of a misconception.
Afolayan, while reacting to a social media row involving him and Ezuruonye, said he was “compelled to publicly offer a response” to the diatribe against him.
“On Thursday, I shared on my Instagram timeline a message posted on my comment section about an unfounded insinuation of his involvement in scams.
“With a message in Yoruba, which I inscribed on the post: “E gba mi o. Ewo n temi?” (Spare me, what’s my own) I had shared the post on my timeline with the intention to jocularly send a message to purveyors of fake news and unproven allegations that they should free me and by extension my other colleagues of such mindless allegations,” he explained in a statement .
According to the filmmaker, he had responded that way to subtly disprove the accusation levelled against Ezuruonye and also discourage similar intrusive messages.
Afolayan said it was pathetic of Ezuruonye to have brought ethnic sentiments into a trivial issue even after explaining the harmless intention behind the post in private messages.
“To me, it didn’t matter that the sender of that message is apparently Igbo. What’s important is that my post drew no negative comments until Mike decided to raise the roof.”
On the diatribe accusation, Afolayan said the facts are there for all to see, adding that he needs not climb atop a roof to shout his detribalised Nigerian nature.
“The array of star colleagues and subject matters treated in my films, in addition to the staff in my workforce and friends in and out of Nollywood that I associate with, will easily put a lie to the cheap anti-Igbo toga that Mike has pitiable tried to dress me with,” he said.
In a series of social media posts over the weekend, Ezuruonye had lashed out at Afolayan for sharing on his timeline a third-party comment that somewhat accused him of scams, adding that he had lost respect for Afolayan but was not surprised because “you have always been anti-Igbo.”
TCN however gathered that several motion picture industry elders have wadded into the matter with the advice that both parties should let bygone be bygone.
