P-Square's Lost Jackson Record Resurfaces In A Family That No Longer Speaks
A clip of Peter Okoye describing the Michael Jackson song that never happened is circulating without a date or a platform, and it has landed in the middle of a court case, a video series and a chart revival nobody planned.
Peter Okoye has told Nigerians a great deal about his family over the past fortnight. Somewhere in among the denials, the court references and the serialised video instalments, a much older story has floated back up to the surface: the record P-Square almost made with Michael Jackson.
Legit.ng, publishing on 11 August 2026, quoted Peter saying, "Akon was close to helping P-Square secure a song with Michael Jackson before he died. He had already helped him write an Afrobeats song for us. When we released the 'Personally' video, Michael Jackson's brother, Jermaine Jackson, video-called us." Legit.ng described the material as coming from a video interview that had resurfaced, and did not say where or when Peter originally gave it. TheNiche, covering the same remarks, described its source only as "a trending video interview which recently made the rounds on social media" and also named no platform and no date. That is worth flagging before anything else. The clip everybody is forwarding this week has no traceable origin, and none of the outlets running it has pretended otherwise.
p>Two brushes, four years apart
Peter's account contains two separate events, and they sit four years apart. Michael Jackson died in June 2009. "Personally" was released on 21 June 2013. Any song Akon was writing for Jackson and P-Square therefore belongs to the pre-2009 period, while the contact with Jermaine Jackson belongs to the middle of 2013. These were two brushes with the same American family, not one long negotiation that death interrupted. The way the clip is being shared, as a single tragic near-miss, flattens that.
p>The 2013 half is the better documented, and it carries an irony that has gone almost unremarked this week. Wikipedia's entry on the single records that "Personally" was the second single from P-Square's sixth album, Double Trouble, that it was produced by Vtek, and that the video was directed by Jude Engees Okoye and Clarence Peters and shot in Lagos, with a cameo by Osita Iheme. The same entry says the video passed a million YouTube views inside three weeks and had reached 30 million by November 2014, then the most-watched Nigerian music video on the platform. In other words, the tribute that finally got a Jackson to pick up a camera for P-Square was co-directed by Jude Okoye, the brother Peter now accuses of taking his money.
p>Vanguard reported in July 2013 that Jermaine Jackson, in a video message posted to P-Square's YouTube channel, said, "It's not everyday that a phenomenal band comes along…..Psquare, they are absolutely sensational with the showmanship, the singing, the dancing." Vanguard's report at the time also carried Jermaine saying he wanted to meet the duo. Peter returned to that moment in an interview with Nile Entertainment, reported by Legit.ng on 15 April 2026, in which he said, "I just saw him making a video to appreciate P-Square's Personally that just came out less than 48 hours before."
p>The Akon half rests on Peter's word
There is no independent record of the Jackson song Akon is said to have written. Akon has not publicly confirmed it, and no outlet covering this week's clip has produced anything beyond Peter's telling. What is documented is that the two acts were commercially entangled. Wikipedia's P-Square entry dates the duo's signing to Akon's Konvict Muzik to December 2011, and the 2012 remix of "Chop My Money" featuring Akon and May D became one of the group's furthest-travelling records.
Akon has, however, been talking about that period again. Leadership reported on 9 August 2026 that Akon, speaking to the platform Afrocani, said of the "Chop My Money" video, "I knew something wasn't right with the management when they wanted us to shoot the video without May D." Leadership also quoted him saying, "I insisted that May D be brought to America because I believe anyone who has talent and is being heard deserves the opportunity to be seen." Fourteen years on, the man Peter says was brokering a Michael Jackson record is on the record describing P-Square's management as a problem he had to work around.
p>Why a 2013 anecdote is trending in 2026
Because of what surrounds it. Peter began releasing a multi-part video account of P-Square's collapse on 30 July 2026. Premium Times reported on 6 August that by part seven he was accusing both Jude and his twin Paul of diverting money, and that he claimed Jude withheld records, delayed catalogue access and asserted ownership of the P-Square brand. Daily Post reported on 3 August that Peter had put the diverted royalties at more than 1.2 million dollars.
p>Jude Okoye denies it. Daily Post reported that in a video response released on Sunday 2 August he said allegations that Peter was removed as a signatory to company bank accounts or denied access to royalty records are false, that distributions followed existing agreements, and that the matter had already been investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and remains before the court. Yen reported that in the same Instagram video he told Peter, "You are trying to bait me. You know the court is not going to your favour," and asked, "Why are you dodging to make appearance in court? For three good sittings now, you dey dodge court."
p>The court part is real and checkable. Premium Times reported that the EFCC arraigned Jude Okoye and his company Northside Music Ltd on Wednesday 26 February 2025 before Justice A.O. Owoeye at the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, on seven counts of money laundering involving 1.38 billion naira, one million dollars and 34,537.59 pounds. He pleaded not guilty. No conviction has been recorded and the case has not been decided.
p>Paul Okoye has stayed out of the exchange. Premium Times quoted his management company, Fire Department Inc., saying, "We will not be drawn into an exchange of allegations or commentary that distracts from the work, the fans, and the music," and asking the public to "avoid speculation and to rely on verified information rather than rumours or online commentary."
The brothers' eldest sibling has been less restrained. Legit.ng, reporting an interview Henry Okoye gave to the YouTube channel Nollyserve in the first week of August, quoted him saying, "When they started this music, they were looking for sponsors. They didn't get a sponsor. When I started sponsoring them, Jude was not there," and, "I'll be happy for them to come back together, but the problem I'm having is that I don't think they'll come back because Jude has made all of us become enemies."
The catalogue keeps selling
Meanwhile the music is doing better than the family. Legit.ng reported on 7 August, citing Album Talks HQ, that Best of P-Square had climbed 87 places to number 100 on Nigeria's Apple Music Albums chart, with Get Squared re-entering at 173 and Game Over at 182.
p>For readers coming in late: Peter and Paul Okoye were born on 18 November 1981 and built P-Square out of an earlier group called Smooth Criminal, formed in 1997. They released six studio albums between Last Nite in 2003 and Double Trouble in 2014, and took the honorary Artiste of the Decade award at the 2015 MTV Africa Music Awards. They broke up in 2017, reconciled publicly in November 2021, and the reunion did not hold. Peter now records as Mr P.
p>Every few years a Nigerian act gets a nod from someone famous abroad and we treat it as a coronation. In 2013 it was a video message. Vanguard reported that Jermaine Jackson posted a clip to P-Square's YouTube channel calling them "absolutely sensational with the showmanship, the singing, the dancing", and for a season that clip was cited in this country as proof that the duo had arrived. They had already sold out arenas across the continent. They still needed a Jackson to say so.
That is the real subject of this week's viral clip, and it is not Michael Jackson. It is the gate. For most of P-Square's career the route out of Nigeria ran through a small number of American desks, and you got through by being adopted. P-Square signed to Akon's Konvict Muzik in December 2011. The remix of "Chop My Money" with Akon travelled further than almost anything they made alone.
Look at what being adopted actually meant, though. Leadership reported this month that Akon, speaking to Afrocani, said of the "Chop My Money" video shoot, "I knew something wasn't right with the management when they wanted us to shoot the video without May D," and that he "insisted that May D be brought to America" so the featured artist could be seen. Read that slowly. A Nigerian artist's visibility on a Nigerian hit depended on an American deciding to intervene. That is not partnership. That is patronage, and patronage is only generous until it is not.
So I cannot mourn the Jackson record. What was lost was not a song, it was a boarding pass, and the flight has since been cancelled for everybody because nobody needs it any more. A Nigerian artist in 2026 uploads on Friday and charts in six countries by Tuesday without asking anyone's permission. The MTV Africa Music Awards handed P-Square an honorary Artiste of the Decade in 2015 for what they built between 2005 and 2015, and they built most of it before any American co-sign existed.
Nostalgia for the co-sign era is nostalgia for a locked door. Let it stay shut.
Set aside who is telling the truth. Something else has gone wrong here, and Nigerian newsrooms, this one included, are part of it.
There is a live criminal prosecution. Premium Times reported that the EFCC arraigned Jude Okoye and Northside Music Ltd before Justice A.O. Owoeye at the Federal High Court in Ikoyi on 26 February 2025 on seven counts of money laundering involving 1.38 billion naira, one million dollars and 34,537.59 pounds, and that he pleaded not guilty. Nothing has been proved. Nobody has been convicted.
p>Running alongside that court, since 30 July, is a serialised video account by one of the people connected to the case, released in numbered instalments, each one covered as an event. Premium Times was reporting on part seven by 6 August. Daily Post reported on 3 August the diverted-royalty figure Peter put at more than 1.2 million dollars. Every part generates a fresh news cycle. The court, which meets rarely and reports nothing, generates none.
p>The objection is not squeamishness about family laundry. It is that a serial is a bad instrument for finding facts. It has a protagonist. It releases what helps it and holds back what does not. It answers to engagement, not to cross-examination. Yen reported that Inibehe Effiong, a lawyer who has acted for Jude Okoye, wrote on X on 5 August that "Jude hasn't been convicted of any crime by any court of law" and that "we should afford him his constitutional right to presumption of innocence", adding that Peter "should focus his energy on testifying in court to support the charges against Jude, instead of resorting to media trial". You do not have to like the messenger to see the point. Jude, in that Instagram video, said Peter has missed three sittings.
p>Paul Okoye's management, Fire Department Inc., asked the public in a statement quoted by Premium Times to "avoid speculation and to rely on verified information rather than rumours or online commentary". That is self-serving and it is also correct.
Here is the uncomfortable part for us. Not one Nigerian outlet covering this, including this one, has independently verified a single naira of what either brother alleges. We are transcribing. If the trial ends with a verdict that contradicts the series, the series will already have decided the matter in the public's head, and no correction will reach the people who watched twelve parts of it.
