Nollywood actor, Mike Ezuruonye says he is not impressed by an apology offered by ace producer, Kunle Afolayan over a fraud allegation he (Afolayan) propagated against him.
He described the apology as an “epistle with very underlined pride”.
Ezuruonye had tagged the filmmaker a tribalist after Afolayan shared a post in which an Instagram follower accused Ezuruonye of defrauding women and covering it up.
See the post:
Reacting, Ezuruonye explained that Afolayan should have contacted him privately before giving credence to the post online.
An obviously angry Ezuruonye stated, “The small respect I had for you is gone, yes I wrote u that in your sick DM. U touched the wrong guy by posting this on your twitter and Instagram stories…Guy, U buy wrong Market!!
“U now acting like u don’t know impersonators are using Actors/Musicians/politicians /celebs fake profiles and videos to Defraud people world over????
“Or haven’t u seen the ones caught in my respect and even jailed for impersonating me by @officialefcc????.
“Why am I surprised, you’ve always HATED IGBOS?”
But in a lengthy post, Afolayan apologised to the actor, adding that he never meant to tarnish his image.
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However, he accused Ezuruonye of going overboard with the tribalism accusation.
“While I did not see my innocent reaction to an indicting post by a random IG follower as capable of further hurting my friend and colleague, Mike Ezuruonye, to be labeled a tribalist in retaliation is very unfortunate.
“Honestly, I was misunderstood.
“My reaction, which was rather spontaneous, was to chide the IG follower who appeared to be reporting the actor to me. And I merely asked (in Yoruba) how all of that was my business. It was like saying ‘when did I become an officer of the law’. Obviously, my colleague took the context of my post wrongly, and angrily accused me of tribalism.
“I do not know what gave birth to such misrepresentation. However, while I am famous for living and promoting everything that my tradition stands for as a Yoruba man, I have maintained a mutual friendship with people of other extractions, Igbos especially. It is therefore not in the interest of both of us (Mike Ezuruonye and I) to politicise our emotion with tribal colouration. For me, this is undeserving of our other friends, and goes to offend the sensibility of genuine relationships we have each cultivated with people of other tribes.”
He said that he had actively promoted inter-tribal relationships and the ideals were reflected in the themes and plots of his movies which include The Figurine, The Bridge, Phone Swap, Omugwo, and Roti.
He apologised to Ezuruonye and other Nigerians that were offended by his post.
But in a Tuesday reacting, Ezuruonye said the filmmaker’s so-called apology was “EPISTLE with Very UNDERLINED PRIDE”.
He stated, “A sincere Apology has Three Parts;
“I’m sorry
“It’s my fault
“What can we do to make this work?
“NOT an EPISTLE with Very UNDERLINED PRIDE,”