30 years after he instituted a suit against
African Songs and its subsidiary,
Juju maestro, King Sunny Ade has just been rewarded with a whopping N500million as damages, for
infringing on his works with additional cost of N3million for prosecuting the
suit.
According to reports, a statement of claim
filed before the court by a Lagos lawyer, Chief Felix Fagbohungbe, SAN, in
1975, a contract dispute arose between King Suny Ade and the two companies
culminating in a judgement delivered by Justice Dosunmu of a Lagos High Court.
When reached out to KSA’s camp as regards
the story and the phone call was picked by his booking agent, who simply said,
‘Sir, this is his booking office, and am not in the right position to speak
about any law suit’. However, in the said judgement the court ordered the
companies to return the master tapes of the original musical works produced
under the label of the two companies by Sunny Ade, but the organizations held
on to the tapes owing to the death of the Chief Executive Officer of the two
companies, Chief Bolarinwa Abioro.
Consequently, in a bid to retrieve the
master tapes, Sunny Ade in 1997
dragged the two companies before a Federal High Court in Lagos. However, the
big question on everyone’s lips is ‘Will KSA ever redeem this money’? In
reality, it might not be a smooth ride to the bank for the 69 years old
musician to pick up a cheque for half a billion naira.