The Pain I Went Through In Getting Justice For My Works For 30 Years – King Sunny Ade

Thirty years after juju maestro, King Sunny Ade, instituted a suit against African Songs and its subsidiary, Take Your Choice Stores, KSA, was awarded a whopping N500million as damages, for infringing on his works with additional cost of N3million for prosecuting the suit, last week.

In an exclusive chat, the veteran musician said that although he is happy about the judgement, he feels pained because his fans were the ones that lost out the most.

He further said that his works which were kept away from him all through the 30 years while the case was pending in court are more valuable than the N500m compensation money.

He said, “I never doubted that I was going to win. If I did, I would never have pursued the case all these years. At some point, people close to me discouraged me from pursuing the case but because I was firm in my belief, I went ahead and finally got justice. The pain I went through is even shared by my fans because there is a gap between my works between 1966 when I started, to 1974. But now I can bridge that gap even though the master tapes are yet to be returned to me even after the court pronouncement. I hope they will do that quickly. The parties involved have no choice than to honour the court order and I believe they are taking their time before acting.

“Although I won the case and believe in justice, I am more interested in my works than the N500m compensation. I will be happy to have the money but my works are of more value to me. The money will heal the pains of the last 30 years. I am going to be 70 years old next year and there would be no better gift at that age than my treasured works. I asked the court for N1bn and the court awarded me half of that amount. I believe that the loss of my master tapes since 1974 should cost about N1bn,” KSA said.