By Akeem Lasisi
Just when you think fuji star, Wasiu Ayinde, is done with surprises and controversies, he swiftly spins another one. Because he has clocked 64, for instance, many would think he is done with marriages, especially when he welcomed another woman into his nest some four years ago. That is Titi, the elegant one said to already have three children for the musician. Sorry for echoing the reported number of the kids, because a Yoruba proverb forbids it: A kii ka omo folomo. That is, you don’t number or count a person’s children.
Whether or not the National Population Commission buys into that adage, the big story now is that Wasiu is in another season of marriage. He tied the knot with another pretty queen, Emmanuella, on Thursday, November 18, 2021. Based on the rate at which the highly experimentalist artiste, who hit the limelight since as far back as 1984, with his Talazo ’84, is thus going, he is likely to surpass older musicians like King Sunny Ade and the late Sikiru Ayinde Barrister in the matter. The case of Barrister would be instructive if Wasiu is able to dethrone him on the stage of women., After all, Barrister was his mentor in the fuji kingdom – and Yorubas say ‘Eni a laa jo, jiju laa ju u’. This roughly means the best way to take after someone on a particular ideal is to surpass the fellow.
Wasiu is not keeping the new deal to his chest. Apart from the fact that he and Emmanuella, who also has kids from her earlier mearriage, staged a society wedding in Abeokuta, he has celebrated her in some songs. Of course, talking and singing about new wives is also not alien to fuji music. Barrister did it, and Kollington did lavishly. While Barry handled it tactically in some contexts, Kollington often did it aloud in the past. That is the way Kollington announced the bridal trip to Ondo when he married Tayelolu:
A dupe lowo Obe o
O te le wa d’Ondo…
When Salawa also returned to his matrimonial life after the initial messy fight, he still sang about it:
Osere meji lo pade o ojogbon olorin…
B’adajo ba f’adajo, mo ni ko buru…
There is, however, a beautiful irony in the game too: Younger fuji folks like Osupa Saheed and Wasiu Alabi Pasuma are not known to be so constantly ammassing women. As a matter of fact, while an Adewale Ayuba is a one man, one woman husband, Pasuma has yet to officially get married to anyone, though he has children with lovers.
Well, fortunately for Wasiu Ayinde who is also prolific with aliases – KWAM 1, K1 de Ultimate etc. – the choice to marry, unmarry, remarry and marry again is that of an individual once all legal and moral principles are observed. Even if anyone finds any reservation with his saying ‘I do’ to Emmanuella, his fans and many others who see nothing wrong in the exercise of his passion will ever defend him. Here is a man who commands the wherewithals to do what he loves – money, limelight and masculine capital, they would say. On a more serious note, however, Wasiu’s decison to marry again may simply just be reinforcing his unpredictable nature, though it is also now predictable that he is likely to marry more.
And who is the lucky Emmanella? Full named Emmnauella Aderopo, the woman in her 40s runs a thriving children boutique and gifts store, Partydreams, in Omole Phase 1, Lagos. She also has a liquor store and is a Forex trader. She attended Yaba College of Technology where she studied Estate Management.
Among others who have profiled her, ‘Premium Times’ captures her bio thus: “The leggy beauty and mother-of-three from a previous marriage, is also a titled chief in Otun Igbehin, Abeokuta. She holds the traditional title of Otun Iyalode of Igbehin in Abeokuta. Her late dad, Stephen Gboyega Odebiyi, was a respected Egba chief. He retired from the Nigerian Ports Authority but became a customary judge after retirement.
She recently told her Wasiu: “My heart bleeds love for you and it fuels my entire being. I had ideas about what you could be, but you shattered those notions and replaced them with a reality beyond my wildest dreams. Men like you are not to be found anymore, You have managed to win both my heart and soul.”
