Oba Saliu Adetunji – The record label boss who waited for 40 years to become Olubadan

No day could have been more honouring for Oba Saliu Adetunji like March 4, 2016, when thousands of people gathered at the historic Mapo Hall in Ibadan to witness his coronation as the 41st Olubadan of Ibadan.

Many say the coronation was the most representative crowd that Ibadan ever assembled in one traditional event at the historic Mapo Hall built by the colonialists in 1929.

When one considers how long it took Adetunji to rise through the ranks from Mogaji (family head) to a High Chief. The circumstances that surrounded his emergence as Olubadan, Adetunji must have felt a distinct fulfilment as he received the staff of office from Governor Abiola Ajimobi (now late), the man who would later make three years of his short reign turbulent.

After about six years as Olubadan, Oba Adetunji passed away at 93 on Sunday, January 2, 2022, at the University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, Adeola Oloko, Director of Media and Publicity at the Olubadan’s Palace, said in a statement.

A successful businessman and record label boss, Adetunji contributed immensely towards West Africa’s entertainment industry growth. 

“What Baba Saliu Adetunji does not know in the Nigerian music industry is not worth knowing,” legendary juju musician Ebenezer Obey said of him.

His Humble Beginning

Born on August 26, 1928, in Ibadan, Oyo State, he was the first of his father, Olayiwola Adetunji’s 17 children from five wives.

He lost his father who was a tailor in 1989, and his mother, Alhaja Suwebat, who was four years younger than the father, also died four years after in 1993.

With no record of formal education, Adetunji said, “my job experience with some white men gave me the opportunity to learn their language by relationship.”

After moving to Lagos in 1949 with his uncle, he enrolled as a tailor apprentice under Disu Alade Igbalojobi at Idumota, Lagos Island. After his apprenticeship, Adetunji started his tailoring business, and he prospered in it.

“My tailoring business boomed because I displayed expertise in the profession. I had four sewing machines and employed four journeymen who worked on shifts,” he said in his profile published on the Olubadan official website.

From Tailoring To Music Business

Adetunji’s journey into the lucrative music business started from his tailoring shop in Lagos Island. Late Badejo Okusanya, the first Nigerian to own a record label, gifted Adetunji the first set of discs he sold that laid the foundation of his music business.

“The late Badejo Okusanya baptised me into the world of music business. He was my boss because he was responsible for my eventual transformation from tailoring business to the music industry,” Adetunji said. “One day, I went with the late Okusanya on a business trip to Agarawu, Lagos. He used to trade in lock keys and padlocks. After the day’s business, he told me to look for a porter that would assist us in carrying the goods. I said porter ke? (Why porter). I told him the load was not heavier than what I could carry. So I carried it on my head to his shop at number 5, Orogiri Street, Lagos. When we got there, he gave me some record discs to be playing for my customers so that they would not be in a hurry to leave my workshop.”

He added: While entertaining my customers with the discs, some of them expressed interest in getting copies, and I obliged them in exchange for money since I wasn’t prepared to give them for free because Badejo gave them to me for a purpose. Within a few days, I sold all the record discs and took the money to Badejo to convince him that I had actually sold them. When I got to him with the proceeds, he made a startling revelation, saying, ‘Thank God. This same business that I started with your father in 1940, but he said he could not continue because he was not comfortable with living in Lagos, is what you’re venturing into now’. He then counted the money and ordered his apprentice to give me four and a half shillings as royalty on each record I sold. I used to sell one record for two pounds, 10 and 15 shillings. That was how I came into record disc sales, and the business boomed.

“I built a rack to hang the records in my tailoring workshop. But when I was having conflicting interests in both trades, I left tailoring and embraced record disc sales.”

Following the boom in his music business, Adetunji started his record label, Omo Aje Records, in 1957 at 2, Oke Popo, in Lagos. He left Oke Popo and bought a building at 14, Ibomo Street, which was later razed by fire, “but God blessed me, and I erected a two-storey building on the site, using all the rooms on the ground floor as a workshop, while we had four flats upstairs. We lived in one flat, used another one as an office, and rented out the remaining two. From there, God continued to bless me.”

Omo Aje Records was home to some of the biggest fuji music stars of that era – Lefty Salami Balogun, Dauda Epo Akara, Tatalo Aremu, Amuda Agboluaje, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, Jimoh Ayinla Anikura, Omo Kekere Amoo, Jaiyegbade Alao and many others. Sule Alao Malaika joined the long list of music artistes on Omo Aje records years later and also married one of Adetunji’s daughters.

“My father bears Babalaje, so I christened my own company OmoAje records while he was alive. When he died, I changed to Babalaje being the head of the family,” he said.

Baba Laje grew into a conglomerate of three music marketing companies with other subsidiaries known as Omo Aje Sound Studio and Adetunji Label.

Adetunji is credited with the rise of K1 De Ultimate to a global star.

Recounting the role Adetunji played in his career, K1 De Ultimate said in an interview: “He picked me up when I was 17 years old and made me a recording artiste in Nigeria. Since then, we have been together. He has invested a whole lot in me. We had a very long period of relationship. In business, he’s a very good man because he’s been involved with many artistes, dead and living.

The journey to Olubadan Stool

His 40-year journey to become the 41st Olubadan started in 1976. It wouldn’t have happened but for the intervention of the late Balogun Olubadan, High Chief Sulaiman Omiyale, who was next in line to become Olubadan after the death of the 40th Olubadan in January 2016. He was one of the two High Chiefs whose death in 2015 paved the way for Adetunji to become Olubadan in 2016.

“I became Mogaji of the Adetunji family in 1976, three years after I was first called to do so,” he recounted in an interview. “I can recollect that the late Balogun Olubadan, High Chief SulaimanOmiyale, pressured me to become the Mogaji of my family, but I refused because of my business. But he persisted and educated me that being a chief in Ibadan will not negatively impact my business. I didn’t yield to his pressure until three years after when I succumbed. Since 1976, I have continued to progress steadily on the Balogun chieftaincy line, climbing the 23 steps according to the tradition of Ibadan chieftaincy.”

Adetunji was three steps to the Olubadan stool behind Omiyale and High Chief Omowale Kuye. But their deaths in November 2015 paved the way for his elevation to Balogun in 2015. With the death of Oba Samuel Odugade in January 2016, Adetunji became the Olubadan and was crowned in March 2016

Turbulent Days As Olubadan

Just a year after Adetunji became Olubadan, late Governor Abiola Ajimobi reviewed the Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration to allow Ibadan to have multiple Obas. Members of Olubadan-in-Council, hitherto known as High Chiefs, who take turns to become the next monarch after the death of the reigning one, were by that controversial review installed as Obas and crowned by Ajimobi.

The governor’s decision sparked a controversy that resulted in court cases. It also led to a face-off between Adetunji and the governor as well as the High Chiefs whom the monarch told to drop their “illegal crowns if they want to enter his palace.”

When Seyi Makinde became governor in May 2019, he opted for a political solution to the impasse. Despite the intervention and the resolution asking the High Chiefs to return to their former position as High Chiefs, the Otun Olubadan, High Chief Lekan Balogun, a former Senator who was the focal person of the crowned Chiefs instituted another case in court in defiance to the resolution.

Ajimobi’s action was one of the major events that shaped Adetunji’s five years and 10 months reign as Olubadan. For three years, he fought battles to sustain the agelong tradition of the Ibadan people.

Since his death and burial at his Popo-Yemoja Palace in Ibadan, on January 2, 2022, from all sides, people have been pouring in tributes celebrating him and his contributions as one of the pioneer pillars of the entertainment industry in Nigeria.

President Muhammadu Buhari described the late monarch as “a visionary and compassionate leader, who used the spheres of his influence as a respected traditional ruler.”

Governor Makinde said Adetunji’s death was painful despite his old age. “He was an exemplary royalty, a great leader and an exemplary royal father,” Makinde said.

A governorship aspirant in Oyo State and CEO of Sodium Brand Solutions, Abisoye Fagade, said Adetunji “was always there for us as he would not turn down the invitation to grace occasions personally to encourage and honour his subjects. This was in addition to his readiness to assist everyone in special ways like a true father he was.”

Fuji music star, K1 De Ultimate, could not be reached for comment.

Adetunji married four wives in his lifetime. A Palace statement said he is survived by his wife, Olori Rashidat Ololade Adetunji, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.