“I’m grateful to God , I’m grateful to Nigerian police,” were words Salawa Abeni uttered as news filtered to town on Sunday that her ‘blackmailer’ has been arrested.
For Waka musician Queen Salawa Abeni, this is an end to her nightmare.
Some weeks ago, a man who claimed to have her nude photos sent a text message to her.
If she thought it was the popular ‘stay safe’ message, then she must be wrong. Whoever sent the message meant more harm than good.
“It was a blackmail text message and I was shocked. The sender, took time to get some old photos of mine and sent them to me. He threatened to post it on the Internet if I don’t cooperate,” she told Kemi Ashefon when she leaked the nude photos herself.
Well, the ‘man’ was caught by law enforcement agents.
Operatives of Rapid Response Squad arrested a 19-year-old student of Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, for allegedly blackmailing Nigerian musician, Salawa Abeni, with her nude pictures.
The suspect, Olufowoke Oladunjoye Emmanuel, a resident of Brentfield Avenue, Peace Estate, Magboro, Ogun State, was arrested on Thursday by the decoy team of the RRS.
Oladunjoye in his statement to the police, confessed to having been the mastermind behind the ploy to publish some nude pictures of Salawa Abeni in exchange for money, adding that he was alone in the scheme.
He said he found the nude pictures in a memory card which he picked up on the floor in YabaTech sometime in November 2019.
He added that after downloading the nude photographs of the musician on his phone, he picked up her mobile number from her Instagram page.
He said, “On 1st of April, 2020, I chatted her up and also called her after sending a few of the photos to her online. My intention was to negotiate with her for few bucks and for me to destroy the photographs.
“I thought everything was going on fine until the following day when I heard the news of the blackmail over the radio. I was with my mother, she was even cursing the blackmailer unknown to her that I was the brains behind it.
“I immediately sneaked out, destroyed the memory card and threw my mobile phone and SIM card into a nearby wetland in Magboro. Since then, I never mentioned it to anyone and called Madam Salawa Abeni about it again.”
Lagos State Police Commissioner, Hakeem Odumosu, stated that no individual would be allowed to commit a crime in Lagos from any state or escape to other states in Nigeria to evade arrest.
Known as the Waka Queen, Salawa Abeni’s career as a teenage songstress shot her into limelight in 1976. Her name, Salawa Abeni became a household name in the South Western part of Nigeria. Her success grew and the name reverberated in other parts of the country. Then, she got married to Fuji musician, Alhaji Kollington Ayinla and the union produced children.
Her fame spread abroad and she embraced the klieglights from teenage years into adulthood.Still an active artiste who performs on stage and other social functions, she is not one to be pushed aside in the entertainment industry.
