Fatai Okoya, the 66-year-old eldest son of industrialist Chief Razaq Okoya, has apologised publicly to his father in an open letter and a TikTok Live session this October. He says the two have been estranged for 30 to 40 years and wants peace while his father is alive.
What caused the rift? By Fatai’s own account, two things.
As a young man, he took a small sum from his father’s company, the Eleganza Group, which he calls reckless and too small to buy a car. The rift widened when he married a woman his father disapproved of.
The sharpest flashpoint came at Chief Okoya’s 86th birthday on January 12, 2026. Fatai says he saw his father, but his stepmother, Shade Okoya, turned him away before they could talk, and that his father recognised him yet stayed silent.
Family associates offer another reading online: that Shade was shielding an elderly man from stress, and that the feud began years before she married him. Chief Okoya’s brother, reportedly present for the broadcast, said she should have handled it with more tact.
Fatai says he wants no money and no share of the family wealth. His daughter Zee, who also spoke, says she has never had a relationship with her grandfather and alleges someone has blocked their attempts to reach him. That claim is unverified, and no one has been named.
One thing remains unstated. Fatai says he is the only child his mother had with the chief, yet he has never publicly named her, and her view of the rift is unknown.
Chief Okoya has not responded to his son’s letter or broadcast, and Shade has not addressed the birthday claim, so the father’s account of the original dispute is unknown.
Among these unknowns, the broadcast host asked businessman Baba Ijebu, described as a friend of Chief Okoya, to speak to him about a meeting. No meeting has been reported.