Ime Bishop Umoh known as Okon Lagos was born on July 15, 1981. Most Nollywood actors spend years trying to separate themselves from a character they once played. Ime Bishop Umoh went the opposite direction, he leaned in so deeply that the character’s name became his own. Today, almost nobody calls him Ime Bishop. They call him Okon Lagos, the name of the 2011 film that changed his life, and he wears it with the ease of someone who knows exactly who he is. What makes him interesting, though, is not just the comedy. It is the fact that behind the laughter is a man who has never been afraid to say something meaningful, about governance, about injustice, about the kind of country Nigeria is and could be.
Okon Lagos Profile
| Name | Okon Lagos |
| Real Name | Ime Bishop Umoh |
| Date of Birth | July 15, 1981 |
| State of Origin | Akwa Ibom |
| Tribe | Ibibio |
| Nationality | Nigerian |
| Occupation | Nigerian actor and comedian |
| Religion | Christianity |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Net Worth | $500,000 |
| Copied from | content101.com |
Educational Background
Okon Lagos had his primary and secondary school education in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, before proceeding to the University of Uyo, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. It is a degree that, on the surface, seems unrelated to comedy and acting, but anyone who has listened to him speak at length will tell you that the philosophical training shows. He thinks before he talks, and when he talks, there is usually something underneath the joke worth paying attention to.
Career
Ime Bishop a Nigerian actor and comedian started acting in childhood, drawn to performance from a very early age. His professional career, however, found its real footing in 2008, when he featured in Uyai, an indigenous Akwa Ibom-language film produced by award-winning filmmaker Emem Isong. The movie opened doors, but it was the 2011 Nollywood comedy Okon Lagos that blew them clean off the hinges. His portrayal of Okon, an Akwa Ibom man navigating life with big dreams and limited resources in Lagos, resonated so immediately and so deeply with Nigerian audiences that the character’s name became his own. He ran with it, starring in several sequels including Okon Lagos 2, Okon Goes to School, and Okon on the Run, building a franchise around a character that people genuinely loved.
Over the years, he has appeared in well over 100 Nollywood productions, across comedy, drama, and everything in between, including Being Mrs. Elliot, The Boss Is Mine, Lost in London, Jump and Pass, The Champion, and many others.
He has worked alongside some of Nollywood’s most respected names and consistently delivered performances that go well beyond the stereotype of a comedian doing cameos. In 2017, he won Best Actor in Comedy at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards for his role in The Boss Is Mine, a formal recognition from the industry that he was more than a funny face.
Beyond acting, Ime Bishop is a successful master of ceremonies, one of the most sought-after MCs in the Nigerian entertainment circuit, and a brand ambassador for GLO Nigeria, one of the country’s major telecommunications companies. In 2016, Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State appointed him Special Assistant on Ethical and Social Reorientation, a role that reflected both his popularity in the state and his willingness to use his platform for something beyond entertainment.
Controversies
Okon Lagos is not the kind of person who keeps his opinions to himself, and that has put him in the middle of several public debates.
In 2019, a video surfaced on social media in which he made a comment suggesting that when police officers violated sex workers, the appropriate term should be “theft” rather than rape. The backlash was immediate and fierce, with many Nigerians accusing him of trivialising sexual violence against women. He was widely dragged across Twitter and other platforms, and the clip continued to resurface periodically as a reference point in conversations about attitudes toward sexual abuse in Nigeria.
Then in April 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, he shared an open letter to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Instagram, writing that “the hunger in the land has finally reached my house” and that he had just eaten the last pot of soup in his home. He framed the post as an appeal for government palliatives to reach ordinary Nigerians. The problem was that his home at the time was in the upscale Victoria Garden City estate, right next to Osinbajo’s own residence, and many Nigerians felt he was either seeking attention at the expense of genuinely hungry people, or simply being tone-deaf about his own comfort relative to those in real need. Critics accused him of faking poverty for clout, and the conversation around his post was unsparing.
In August 2025, he appeared on The Clarity Zone podcast and made the controversial argument that IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, who had just been convicted on terrorism charges, should be freed by the Federal Government, not because the legal case was weak, but because releasing him would make “moral common sense” and promote national reconciliation. The statement divided public opinion sharply, with some agreeing with his reconciliation argument and others accusing him of downplaying Kanu’s role in inciting violence that had claimed many lives.
Later, in November 2025, he published an open letter to President Bola Tinubu on Instagram, calling for the arrest and prosecution of Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, whom he described as a “banditry apologist” for his repeated public defences of armed groups operating across the North-West. He argued that Nigeria could not restore peace while certain individuals enjoyed what he called “sacred cow” status. That letter also generated strong reactions, particularly from those who agreed with his frustration but questioned whether calling for the arrest of a cleric based on public commentary was legally or morally straightforward.
Okon Lagos Social Media Handle
https://www.instagram.com/okonlagos
Personal Life
Ime Bishop Umoh was born on July 15, 1981, in Ikot Nsit-Ibom, Akwa Ibom State, into the Ibibio ethnic group.
Ime Bishop Umoh is married to Idara Bishop Umoh (née Saviour), a native of Uyo and a graduate of Communication Arts from the University of Uyo, who is also the CEO of a makeup and beauty brand, Idysavy Makeovers. The two met in 2012 at a wedding where he was the MC and she was one of the bridesmaids. He famously said he could not take his eyes off her from across the room and had to approach her immediately.
They married in a traditional and white wedding ceremony in Uyo on October 19, 2013. Together they have two daughters, Juanita Imeabasi Umoh, born in 2014, and Zoe Umoh, born in November 2017. He has spoken warmly about fatherhood on multiple occasions and refers to his family as the “Okon Republic.”
Okon Lagos Net Worth
Okon Lagos’s net worth is estimated to be around $500,000