The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, on Monday, April 14, presented Peter Obumuneme Okoye, as its first witness against Jude Chigozie Okoye, his elder brother and former Manager of Paul and Peter Okoye, aka PSquare, before Justice A. Owoeye of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos.
At the resumption of the court proceedings on Monday, April 14, Peter while being led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Aso Larry’s Peters, said
“The group, P-Square started sometime in 1997. But in 2017, it was disbanded. We stayed apart for about five years. But in November 2021, the group came back. Before Jude became our Manager, we had several managers, including Chioma Ugochi, who managed us when we were in the secondary school and in the University; and the late Bayo Odusami of Mbuntu music, who managed us for five years.
Thereafter, my twin brother and I managed the band for a couple of months before we decided that he (Jude) would manage us and Northside Entertainment Limited.
So, we continued running our business. But we were always having issues about how he was running the business. The issues were mainly about the fact that he was the sole signatory to all our bank accounts in Ecobank, Zenith and FCMB.
These issues lasted for a couple of months. I didn’t have access to the accounts until the current Minister of Aviation, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN, who was our lawyer, said we needed a sharing formula.”
While giving further evidence, he recalled an incident when the brothers were building their houses in Ikoyi, saying
“The funding of the house project was by Northwest Entertainment Ltd. But they just stopped financing my house for six months. The accounts were owned by the company, while Jude was the only signatory to all the accounts. At some, I approached him and my twin brother, Paul, to know why they stopped financing my project. But what I heard from them was “As you leave P-square, u leave the money’.
