Peter Okoye spent the first week of August releasing a seven-part video series accusing his brother Jude of diverting more than $1.2 million in P-Square royalties, and by August 5 Peter had confirmed that Jude, backed by their brother Paul, had filed a fresh lawsuit aimed at stopping him from performing songs released under the P-Square name. What started as a family dispute over unpaid royalties has turned into a fight over who actually controls Africa’s best-known music brand, and it is playing out in a Lagos courtroom at the same time it is playing out on Instagram.
Seven Episodes, One Number: $1.2 Million
Peter, known professionally as Mr P, began his “tell-all” video series in late July and had reached a seventh instalment by August 6. The claims have escalated with each episode. In the third video, he said he discovered the alleged diversion after trying to obtain the bank statement for Northside Entertainment Limited, the company that has handled P-Square’s group earnings, only to find he was no longer listed as a signatory on the account. He separately alleged that a related company, Northside Music Limited, was incorporated by Jude and Jude’s wife Ify without his knowledge, with Ify allegedly holding 80 percent ownership and 800,000 shares.
By the seventh instalment, Peter had gone further, walking through a Northside Entertainment bank statement he said covered 2013 to 2014 and showing a total inflow of $1,925,000 for that period. He also alleged a breakdown of one FCMB dollar account in which Jude received roughly $211,000, Paul about $78,650, and Peter himself just $41,800. Peter has not made the underlying documents public in a form outside media outlets could independently verify; the figures come from his own presentation. In the parallel criminal case, the defence has separately produced a signed account mandate showing Peter was in fact a Category B signatory on the Northside Entertainment account alongside Paul, with Jude as Category A, and Peter has since acknowledged under cross-examination that he was a co-signatory, a detail that complicates his broader signatory-access claims even as the underlying royalty-diversion dispute remains unresolved.
Jude’s Rebuttal: “Debunking the Lies”
Jude responded on August 2 with a lengthy video titled “Debunking the Lies.” He denied ever removing Peter as a signatory or withholding royalty records, and disputed the $1.2 million figure outright, saying every payment was documented and that Peter has received dollar royalties since as far back as 2012. On one specific disputed payment of roughly $25,000, Jude produced what he said was a 2016 email from digital distributor Iroko showing Peter had personally instructed that his share be paid to him directly while the remainder for Jude and Paul went into the Northside Entertainment account.
Jude also disclosed that his bank accounts and passport have been frozen for over two years as part of the ongoing court proceedings, and accused Peter of missing three consecutive court appearances, including a June 17 hearing that was adjourned to September 21 after prosecutors said Peter, the case’s key witness, could not travel from Abuja in time; defence counsel disputed that account, telling the court he believed Peter was already in Lagos. The court did not resolve the disagreement and simply adjourned the matter.
The Real Fight: Who Owns P-Square
The royalty numbers are the headline, but the more consequential claim came later in the week. Jude has separately pursued legal action to stop Peter from performing songs released under the P-Square brand, arguing he holds sole ownership of the name, a lawsuit Paul is reportedly backing. Nigerian outlets reported Jude going as far as characterising Peter’s original role in the group as that of a dancer rather than a co-owner, a claim Peter has firmly rejected, countering that P-Square’s first album came out in 2003, years before Jude became involved in managing the group. That dispute is reportedly distinct from the criminal royalty case, in which Peter says he is only a witness, meaning P-Square, split since 2017, reunited briefly in 2021, and disbanded again in 2024, is now fighting on two separate legal fronts over both money already paid and the right to perform its own catalogue going forward. As of the most recent reports, Jude had not publicly responded to Peter’s claims about the performance lawsuit specifically.
What the Court Case Actually Says
It is worth separating the video war from the underlying criminal matter, because the two do not fully agree. Jude and his company Northside Music Limited were arraigned in a Lagos court in March 2025 on four counts of alleged theft and conversion of $1 million and £34,000 in royalties from digital distribution and publishing, tied to payments the EFCC said were made by Lex Records Limited, Kobalt Music and Mtech Limited. Jude was granted bail of 50 million naira. But the case has not gone cleanly for Peter’s side either: in a November 2025 hearing, EFCC counsel told the court it had no evidence to support Peter’s separate allegation that Jude fraudulently withdrew $800,000, with the prosecutor stating plainly, “We do not have it. It is his evidence. Let him prove it. I can’t give what I don’t have.” A later hearing in December 2025 saw the court reject documents filed by Jude’s own lawyers as inadmissible, siding with EFCC objections that they were not properly part of the court record. The matter, last heard on June 17, 2026, is now adjourned to September 21, 2026.
Why This Matters Beyond the Family Drama
Strip away the sibling history and what is left is a structural problem that shows up across Nigerian music business disputes: royalty administration inside artist groups is still commonly run through a single family-controlled entity and a small number of bank signatories, with no independent, auditable rights administration sitting between the distributor, the collecting party, and the artists who are supposed to get paid. When that structure works, nobody questions it. When it breaks down, as it has here, the fight becomes almost impossible to resolve cleanly, because there is no neutral ledger either side can point to. For a catalogue as commercially significant as P-Square’s, still generating streaming and performance income a decade after its biggest hits, that is not just a family embarrassment. It is a reminder of how much of Nigerian music’s back office still runs on trust between people who no longer trust each other.
