Shade Okoya Blocked Me From My Own Father: Fatai Okoya Makes Explosive Claim
Fatai Okoya, 66, the eldest son of Nigerian billionaire Alhaji Razaq Okoya, has publicly begged his father for forgiveness, turning years of private effort into an open letter and a series of revelations that have made the family name one of the most-discussed topics on Nigerian social media.
Mr. Okoya, 86, is the founder of the Eleganza Group, a business empire that made him one of the wealthiest men in Nigeria. His son says the two have not had a real relationship for about 40 years.
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Fatai traces the rupture to two events from his younger days: he moved money without his father’s approval, and he married a woman his father did not accept. He says those choices wrecked their bond.
In an open letter shared on Sunday, Fatai said he regrets the long separation and asked for a chance to rebuild. He followed it with a TikTok live interview on YeyeKudi Courtroom, where he said he misses his father and attributed his conduct decades ago to youthful recklessness and the influence of his years abroad.
Fatai said the letter was not his first attempt. Over the years, he said, he approached his grandmother, his father’s friends and several prominent figures to plead his case. Chief Okoya did not relent, and according to Fatai, he sometimes cut off the very people who tried to mediate.
Fatai noted that his father has forgiven others who wronged him, which makes the continued silence toward his eldest son harder to understand.
Fatai now believes someone is standing in the way. He pointed to Shade Okoya, the businesswoman who is Chief Okoya’s youngest wife, and suggested she may hold considerable sway over the elderly patriarch.
His account of their last encounter supports that view. In January, Fatai received a special invitation to his father’s 86th birthday celebration and attended.
Relatives tried to arrange a meeting between father and son, and Fatai said he was nearly at the spot where it was to happen when Shade Okoya turned him back, saying he could not see his father unless the family had been properly notified.
Chief Okoya saw him from where he sat but said nothing. To Fatai, the silence suggested that the decision had already been made on his father’s behalf.
Reaction in Nigeria has been sharply divided. Many commenters have labeled Fatai a “prodigal son” and questioned the timing of his appeal, speculating that he may have learned the contents of his father’s will. Others argued that he is being poorly advised, saying that if he wants reconciliation, he should approach Shade Okoya with respect rather than blame her in public.
His daughter, now more than 40 and the child of the marriage that began the quarrel, rejected the money theory. She said the family is not poor and lacks nothing, adding that Fatai’s own grandmother left him an inheritance.
Her father, she said, is an old man seeking closure, and the family is asking for nothing but peace. She added that the emotional strain has weighed heavily on him and has spilt over onto his own children, whom he sometimes blames for his misfortune, even though the wife whose marriage caused the original dispute has since died.
Chief Okoya has not responded to his son’s letter or interview. In a recent interview, however, he spoke at length about the younger generation, lamenting that young people no longer listen and prefer their own ideas to the old way of doing things.
He said they “must learn things the way we are doing it” and that “they hold the future,” adding that at 79 he feels the weight of passing his work on so they do not fail as some of the older ones did.
Those remarks have drawn fresh attention to another of his sons, the musician Raheem Okoya, who performs as Sir Raheem and who stepped away from music. Some Nigerians have wondered aloud whether the elder Okoya’s insistence on tradition played a part in that decision, though no one in the family has said so.
The matter now rests with a billionaire in his late eighties and a son who says he only wants a chance to be heard.
