King Sunny Ade Fathered Me 52 Years Ago, Refused DNA Test, Woman Alleges

Elizabeth Ayeni, a 52-year-old Osun State resident, has claimed that Sunday Adeniyi, popularly known as King Sunny Ade (KSA), a veteran Nigerian musician, is her father.

Ayeni said that until 2020, she did not know her biological father. This changed when Funmilayo Olakunle, her aged mother, disclosed to her that Adeniyi impregnated her sometime in 1970.

Since then, she has made several attempts to reach him, but all efforts proved abortive. Her efforts to get him to do a DNA test have also not been successful.

“I learned that my mother’s husband was not my father, so I asked her about it. She told me my father’s name was Niyi, and he was from Ondo State,” Ayeni told FIJ. “She then told me he was the famous King Sunny Ade, which surprised me.”

“She explained that she met Sunny Ade once when on a trip with a friend, and they had a one-night stand, but she lost contact with him as there were no telephones at the time. She wanted to abort the pregnancy as her family wanted her to marry someone.

“After giving birth to me, she left me with her parents, and I grew up without mother and father. It was recently that I decided to find out where I descended from, so I asked my mother.”

She said before setting out to find and ask her mother, she had received a revelation in a church in Ogun State. “A pastor told me all of it,” she said.

After Olakunle mentioned KSA as her daughter’s father, both of them set out to meet him at his residence in Ondo State, but were unsuccessful.

“All the times we went to see KSA, we could not see him. We dropped a letter along with a photograph of myself,” Ayeni added.

She said upon returning to Lagos, one of Sunny Ade’s aides called to ask if she was still around, but she was not. “The elderly man then said, ‘Your daddy wants to speak to you,’” Ayeni said.

Sunny Ade spoke on the phone and promised to call her back, according to her, but it has been two years now.

HOW I MET AND GOT PREGNANT FOR SUNNY ADE — Olakunle

Olakunle said she was in Osun State in 1970 when one Olu, a friend of hers who is now late, asked her to accompany him to Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. In a brief submitted to Gani Fawehinmi Human Rights Foundation (GFHRF), she said she and Olu made a stop in Ondo State to eat. It was at a restaurant that she met KSA.

“Sunny Ade made a pass at me, and paid for our meal,” Olakunle said. “Afterwards, he requested that we make out. I told him that my menstrual cycle had lapsed three days before our meeting and my chances of getting pregnant were high.

“He allayed my fears and told me not to worry. We had unprotected sex, and I continued with Olu on the journey. A month after, I discovered I had missed my period.”

She said she made several attempts to reach him but did not get a response.

Taiwo Abiodun, a representative of the GFHRF, said that the foundation had on multiple occasions written to KSA to make himself available for a DNA test to ascertain the veracity of the claim, but he did not respond.

FIJ called KSA’s spokesman who identified simply as Dayo, and he declined to comment. He said he would refer FIJ to Sunny Ade’s legal representatives, but weeks after, he has not done so. He also did not respond to messages sent to him.

 

Fij