Issues Between Me and Prophet Ajanaku – Tope Alabi

Tope Alabi, the popular gospel singer talks to Punch about her ordeals, career and controversies surround her.

 

You want to do the second season of the concert you did last year, was it because last year’s edition was successful that you decided to do another one this year?

It wasn’t really because of that. It is just that the concert is what we have planned to be doing for God every year. God has done so much for us. Even when man is not faithful, God has remained faithful. We want to thank Him for His faithfulness.

 

What really do you want to achieve with this concert?

We want people who don’t know God to understand that God is faithful and that is why we praise Him. We want to impart on the lives of people.

 

The name Tope Alabi has been so synonymous with gospel music even when some of your contemporaries have veered off to another genre or even stopped music entirely, what has been the staying power all this while?

I see God in whatever I do. Even if God doesn’t answer you now, it doesn’t mean you should stop working for Him. If He has called you, that means you are so important to Him.  I am working for Him and I am just privileged to work for Him. I don’t want anything to distract me from working for Him. It is not as if I am doing gospel for the money, I sing because I want people to hear the good news.

 

But have you thought of doing secular music?

No, it has never crossed my mind.

 

You used to do sound track of movies?

Oh yes. But I don’t really do it again.

 

Why did you stop?

I didn’t stop because it is secular. I don’t always have the time to watch the movies before I do the sound track. I just discovered that I was being given all kinds of movies. I would just be told the title and a little synopsis of the movie and I would do the sound track. Then when I do the sound track, it would be different from what the movie is talking about. I have now told producers that I have to watch the movie before I do the sound track. What it means is that I would be forced to reduce the number of movies I compose the sound track. My sound track should not be different from what I preach for. I can’t compose sound track for movies that the major story line is on herbalists. I can’t praise herbalists. I will be a rebellious child.

 

Taking you back to the beginning, why did you decide to be a singer?

I studied Mass Communication. I had wanted to be a newscaster or a fashion designer. It got to a stage where I found out that I loved to sing a lot. I was in the choir when I was growing up but that didn’t mean anything. Anybody could be a chorister provided you could sing well. But my parents told me that when I was much younger, some people used to tell them that I would be a minister of God. But because we were Catholics, my parents considered taking me to the convent. They said I might fulfill the dream of becoming a minister of God when I become a reverend sister. I would be sleeping and I would see myself singing to a multitude of people. At times, I would be preaching in my dream.

 

Did you go to the convent?

No, I refused. That place was so quiet. I told my parents that I didn’t think students were even allowed to play in that school. When you passed the gates of the convent at Ibadan, you wouldn’t even hear a bird chirp. Ah! I told them I wouldn’t go to that school; I would rather be a reverend sister in our house. I didn’t want to be a singer, I just found myself doing it. I even loved to be a theatre girl. I wanted to be an actress.

 

But you eventually became one?

Oh yes. I acted for 21 years. I featured in well over 20 movies. I acted with so many people.

 

So, why did you stop acting?

When I gave my life to Christ, I discovered that it wasn’t a place for me. I am not saying the people there are bad people. It was just that the Holy Spirit told me that place wasn’t for me.

 

You had stopped acting before you became a singer?

No, I was singing and acting as well.  Sometimes, I would be at the location and all I would be required to do was to sing. In fact, that was the major reason my face wasn’t so popular in the movies because I was always asked to sing instead of acting. I would be casted in some minor roles that people wouldn’t even recognise in the movie. It wasn’t until I did a movie, Malomo that people recognised me. I played a prominent role in the movie.

 

What happened to the dream of becoming a fashion designer?

It materialised. I don’t sew but I have people who sew for me. I tell them what to do. But then, I go to the market to get all the fabrics I use.

 

Don’t people mob you when you go to the market?

If you are not a nag in the movies or as a celebrity, you would live your normal life. I go to the market and people just greet me. They can’t do more than that. They don’t know me. They cannot ask about my husband. They don’t know him. Before you know it, I am done with my purchase and I am gone. You would even feel embarrassed if you stop me to talk more. I am very free.

 

Your husband has been supportive; he is even your manager…

He is no longer my manager. I have a new manager. He is the marketer now. He is my boyfriend and the father of my children. He is the small boy in the house that must eat first even if no other person has eaten.

 

But most men don’t want their wives to be in the spotlight, how come he supports you like this?

I just thank God for his life. You can imagine, when we go for programmes, I would be given a seat in the front row while my husband would be given a seat at the back. Imagine! I would always tell him to come and sit in front so I can go to the back but he would never agree. He would ask me if he was Tope Alabi. God has been guiding us. How would I have managed without a husband like this?

 

Where did you meet him?

I met him in the studio. He was a studio rat. He worked anywhere in the studio. He never went out of the studio. He was such a tiny man when we met. But see him now, I have packaged him. He has also packaged me as well. I am more beautiful now. We met 19 years ago. We got married five years after.

 

A few years ago, somebody wrote a petition to the police against you claiming that you defrauded him of millions of Naira. How true is that allegation?

Somebody called me from America to do a job for him. He actually wanted me to compile five tracks of some of the sound tracks I had done and put them in an album for him. I told him I wasn’t doing such. He said he would come to Nigeria to negotiate the price. I told him he shouldn’t come to Nigeria to negotiate on sound track. I told him I could do a full album for him and not sound track.

 

Did he eventually come to Nigeria?

He came but he didn’t come with the other three people I had spoken to on the phone since we started negotiating. We discussed about the album. He told me he would pay N3m. We went to the studio and did the job. The man came one day and collected the master tape and ran away.

 

Why?

I don’t know. Even before he left, he collected some money from some people with a promise to take them to America.

 

What happened later?

It was three years after that the man wrote the petition that I duped him of N125m. I don’t know who duped who. We went to Special Fraud Unit. I was invited and I told them the full story. They investigated the story and found out that the man was even owing me. But the story was on the net and nobody would even know the truth. It was even the SFU that eventually helped me to collect my money from the man.

 

Tope Alabi, Pastor Ajanaku & Wife

Another story that generated some kind of controversy is the issue you had with the late Pastor Ajanaku, did you ever make up before he died?

On that issue, I would rather say no comment. When God is working in your life, anything can happen along the line. The Israelites faced turbulence and eventually got out of it. We need people who are spirit-filled to just fold their arms and watch what God will do.

 

Some people say you are happy he is no more…

God doesn’t like anybody who rejoices over a friend or enemy’s death. I cannot be an enemy of what God created. I can only be an enemy of God’s enemy. If you don’t like God, certainly, I will not like you. But I still say no comment on that issue.

 

Does it mean you will not tell us what really caused the problem between you two?

No comment. I just want people to say what they want to say. You are free. Your heart is not in my heart. People can speculate. People can feel whatever they want to feel.

 

But we learnt he anointed another singer as his spiritual child and it got you so upset…

I wasn’t there. I don’t know. So if I wasn’t there, how would I now ‘put mouth’ in something I don’t know about? I can’t say what I don’t know.

 

But did you feel bad that they said he had replaced you, even if you weren’t there, you must have heard it?

I cannot feel bad. I didn’t feel bad. I can bring somebody today and I decide to bring that person up. Anybody is free to do whatever he/she feels like doing.

 



Pastor Ajanaku spraying money on Tope Alabi

We learnt you also stopped attending his church…

Actually, I was never a member of his church but people don’t know this. I am just a woman who loves to help ministries. I go to the church and I give money, not small money. I can work for six months and I take my tithe to him just to bless his ministry. I do that in other ministries. I can minister in churches without collecting money. I know what I have passed through. I know where I am coming from. I want to bless God and thank Him. The first day I ministered in his church, he gave me money but I didn’t collect it. I never collected money from him in my life, but I have donated millions to his church and so many other churches. I have so many people living in my house that I don’t even know their parents; and I just help them. I pay their fees. My husband helps the widows, we donate to orphanages. We just want to help.

 

How was growing up? Were you born with a silver spoon?

No. I was born with a kwashiorkor spoon. There were times we didn’t have food to eat. It got to a point one of my mother’s eyes went blind. She would have lost the two eyes. We were 11. But they died one after the other. We are just three now. My elder brother is in his 50s. I am 44 this year and my younger brother is 35. It was tough and rough. My elder brother is in Paris now and my younger brother is a chartered accountant. We bless God; He has been faithful to us.