Suleiman Ladini, the actor who played the bandit Yakubu in Daniel Etim-Effiong's 2025 thriller The Herd, has confirmed that Premium Times reached out to apologise to him and has corrected an article that had wrongly credited the role to another actor for close to ten months.
According to a statement Ladini shared, someone from Premium Times contacted him personally to apologise for the error, and the affected article has since been amended to properly identify him as the actor behind Yakubu. He said he understood the correction would soon reflect across other platforms and databases that had picked up the original mistake.
The error traces back to a Premium Times feature on the film's breakout stars, which had named a different actor as the one who played Yakubu, a credit that other outlets and even Wikipedia's entry on the film went on to repeat. Yakubu is one of The Herd's most talked about characters, a volatile bandit whose brief but intense screen time drew strong reactions from viewers, with some naming him the character who unsettled them the most in the film.
In his statement, Ladini said he had chosen not to pursue legal action or damages over the mix up, explaining that his priority was simply to have the work credited back to him. He described the nearly ten months in which searches for the role were pointing to the wrong name as a period in which he could not be found in connection with his own work, and said he could only guess at how many casting calls, collaborations or professional enquiries may have passed him by as a result.
He thanked everyone who had raised the issue, shared it, or offered support while it was unresolved, and closed his statement with well wishes for other creatives navigating similar visibility problems, saying he hoped every professional's name and work would remain easy enough to find by the people looking for exactly what they offer.
