Dancer Kaffy opens up about family’s fall from riches to rags

Award-winning Nigerian dancer and choreographer Kafayat Shafau, popularly known as Kaffy, has revealed the dramatic fall of her family from wealth to hardship, sharing how it shaped her childhood.

Kaffy recounted her story during a recent episode of the Honest Bunch Podcast, explaining that her parents were once among Nigeria’s elite, “in the league of MKO Abiola,” and hosted legendary entertainers like King Sunny Ade, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, and Ebenezer Obey every weekend at the height of their success.

However, the family’s fortunes took a sudden downturn, forcing her father to move to London and work as a cleaner.

“My parents were the first people to spray dollars at parties.

“You would hear Sunny Ade and Barrister sing their praises.

“These people came to our house every weekend,” Kaffy said, recalling her parents, Alhaji Shafau and Alhaja Alake Lakonko, as former high-profile Lagos socialites.

The dancer also shared how she coped with scarcity, revealing that she survived on garri alone for seven months.

“There were times when we had no food for weeks and months. Hunger is a mentor.

“If you want the body to sustain on only water because water is the only thing you see, it would.

“I drank garri for seven months without break, there was no Kwashiorkor,” she explained.

Kaffy also spoke about the emotional toll on her mother, who sometimes experienced “psychotic breaks,” blaming her children for the family’s struggles. “She would put us in the center of the house, saying, ‘You are the reason why… your destiny should start providing for me because you’re the reason I am not anywhere in my life,’” Kaffy recalled.

The revelations offer a rare glimpse into the dancer’s challenging upbringing and the resilience that shaped her journey to success.