How my fight with Barrister began –Kollington

Veteran fuji musician, General Ayinla Kollington, has recounted how he his feud with his late friend, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister started.

In a biography about Omowura, titled ‘Ayinla Omowura Life and Times of an Apala legend’ written by lawyer Festus Adedayo, Kollington concisely reminisced on some of his musical adventures with his godfather and revealed that he was fortified with juju by Ayinla Omowura after a widely successful album that was a response to Fatai Olowonyo, arch-rival of Omowura.

The music icon said that this was the start of his squabble with his friend, late Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.

Kollington said that Olowonyo, after the release of the album approached Barrister to do a reply to both him and Omowura.

He said, “I ran to him (Omowura) countless times to tell him that Olowonyo’s fans said they will kill me. He said they could not do me any harm, that I should forget that… He then took me inside his room and began administering all manner of fetish objects on me. He would ask me to steep some inside a cornmeal (eko) and some of them, he would bath me with them. He would call his younger brother, Dauda, and ask him to go and bring a razor and some of the fetish objects in his room, with which he would incise my body and rub fetish objects. That was how I sang the song and no reprisal came to me from the Olowonyo group and his gangs.”

“Olowonyo enlisted Sikiru’s help in attacking and replying to my diatribes in “Omo Iya onipako.” Sikuru too behaved like a child in that he ought to have thought about the fact that I was his friend and instead of acceding to Olowonyo’s request, the best thing for him to have done was to call me and seek to find an end to the feud. Rather than do this, he also went to the studio to sing against me. He sang “Ba o ba to ja la…” (If we are not up to stopping a feuding party…) That was how the fight against (sic) us began.”

“He was a very great man. Death is very powerful. Ayinla Omowura was also a very brave man. I liked him beyond description. I loved his songs as well.”