Barrister’s associates go to court over his last Album

This is According to Punch

The status of ‘Barrister’ Last Message’, his purported album released after his death, is now a subject of litigation, AKEEM LASISI writes

 

 Although fuji creator, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, left behind a large family, his house has not witnessed the kind of dispute that usually trails the death of a polygamist of his calibre. Many of his fans worldwide would, at least, note that none of such has been reported on any public platform.

As far as some of his friends and business associates are concerned, however, it is too early to sing ‘Uhuru’. Indeed, what has now been described as his last album – Barrister Last Message – released after his death by 100 % Entertainment Company, owned by London-based music promoter, Ademola Adegboyega Otolowo, aka Baba Omo, has become a subject of litigation.

For  some three decades, Otolowo has lived in the UK, promoting artistes of African descent, including Koffi Olomide, Awilo  Logomba and Barrister.

The matter started with various stories, some indicating that Otolowo should not have released the album, while some noted that it was somebody else, and not Barrister, that sang the songs in it. The issues came to a head recently when Otolowo dragged veteran music marketer, Lati Alagbada, and Barrister’s former friend, Alhaji Buhari Oloto, to court in a N50million suit.

In the case filed by his lawyer, Barrister Olawale Balogun of Olawale Balogun and Co., at the Ikeja High Court, Lagos, Otolowo is claiming damages against Alagbada and Oloto, for “disrupting the sales” of the album, and for “wrongful and illegal detention, inhuman and degrading treatment, molestation, embarrassment and traumatisation” of his appointed marketer, Hammed Adepoju, and Azeez Adisa, an Ilorin-based fuji artiste.

Among other prayers, the plaintiffs are seeking “a declaration that the 1st to 3rd Respondents cannot force, coerce or stop the marketing and sale of the musical work in issue titled “Barrister Last Message” without a valid order of a court of competent jurisdiction”; and “a perpetual injunction restraining the Respondents, whether by themselves or their officers, agents, servants, privies or otherwise howsoever called from harassing, detaining, molesting, embarrassing, threatening, torturing or take the life of the Applicants over a purely civil matter of copyright without due compliance with and except as provided and in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).