King Sunny Ade's ex-guitarist, 62year old Fatoke Abiodun (left) was
arrested on Tuesday January 1 2013 at MMIA with 1.575kg of cocaine as he
attempted to leave Nigeria. Fatoke said he turned to drugs after he was
unceremoniously retired in 2007 without severance pay after playing
with KSA for 30 years. King Sunny Ade has finally reacted, saying his
former guitarist was not a member of staff of
his company but just a member of his band, who was not entitled to a
severance pay. What he told Punch below...
I pay salaries to the members of staff of my
company. As for my band members, we share money based on what we make at
every show where we perform. I would first of all, remove the money for
taxes, equipment we used and other stuff connected to the performance.
Thereafter, the remaining money is shared among all of us. Before now, I advised my band members that we should
have a common purse, where we should leave money for welfare. But they
refused and insisted that everything should be shared.
If he and the others had agreed to my advice then,
he wouldn’t have had any reason to say he didn’t get any severance
allowance,”
See more after the cut...
