Toluwanisings’ Father Opens Up on Losing His Wife Months After Their Son’s Birth, Then Pleads for a Home Burial
The father of the gospel singer Toluwanisings has publicly asked the singer’s widow to let him bury their son inside his own house, exposing a family disagreement over the burial that has unfolded in the middle of a national outpouring of grief.
Muniru Adekunle Olayemi said in a recent interview that he wants his son laid to rest at home and does not want a church or cemetery grave. “I don’t want him buried in a church or cemetery,” Mr. Olayemi said. “I want him buried in his house and that will make me happy.” He added that prayers could be organized at the house instead.
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Mr. Olayemi said he learned of the death online, where photographs of his son were circulating with condolence messages, and went to see his daughter-in-law, Akanbi Elizabeth Irawomitan. According to his account, she suggested a cemetery or a church.
He proposed the house, which he said his son built not long ago and which he described as the singer’s glory. She declined, he said, explaining that she could not be comfortable living in a house where her husband was buried.
Mr. Olayemi then suggested taking the body to Agba, a town in Osun State, to lie beside the singer’s mother. Other reports say the widow prefers a cemetery in Ibadan, the city where the couple lived.
The dispute rests on the father’s account and has not been independently confirmed, and the widow has not publicly detailed her position. The family’s last official statement on the subject, posted on Instagram on October 16, said no burial arrangements had been confirmed and described the family’s own page as the only reliable source of updates. As of Monday, no burial date or location had been made public.
Mr. Olayemi also described the singer’s upbringing. He said his son, born in Kano in 1992 and given the Muslim name Sodiq Olayemi Bayonle, lost his mother when he was about six months old. He said her body was brought to Agba, her hometown, where her relatives insisted on seeing her before the burial.
Afterward, he said, they asked to keep the infant so they would not have to bear the loss of their daughter while also caring for a baby. The maternal relatives were Christians, and the boy grew up in that faith, which Mr. Olayemi said pleased him. He said he stayed in contact with his son and that his side of the family helped pay for his education, including studies at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
In Lagos, the singer met his future wife through a church choir. He took the name Toluwanisings when he began singing gospel professionally. Mr. Olayemi, who lives in a rented single room in Ikirun, Osun State, said his own family included both Christians and Muslims.
Mr. Olayemi also disputed the singer’s age. Several news outlets reported that Toluwanisings was 41 or 44 when he died, but his father insisted he was 34. “I, the father, know when I gave birth to him,” he said.
Toluwanisings, whose full name was Olayemi Bayonile Bolaji, died in the early hours of Wednesday, October 14. Reports said he collapsed at his home in Ibadan after complaining of tiredness, less than a day after a performance that later circulated widely online.
His family confirmed the death that evening in a statement on his verified Instagram page, identifying him as Minister Olayemi Bayonile Bolaji of the Toluwani Gospel Music Ministry, “a dearly loved husband, family member, and gospel minister.”
The family did not disclose the cause or place of death. News of his condition had spread hours earlier, prompting alarm among fans, and the lawyer Pelumi Olajengbesi and the comedian Woli Agba had urged prayers for him.
The circumstances of his final hours have drawn scrutiny. His personal assistant, Babadunni Olayemi, said the singer was taken to as many as seven or eight hospitals in Ibadan, where some turned him away, citing a doctors’ strike or giving no reason.
The University College Hospital in Ibadan said it had no record of the singer being brought to the facility. A celebrity journalist, Seun Oloketuyi, offered a different account, writing that the singer collapsed on a staircase and that two hospitals declined to treat him before a third pronounced him dead.
The activist known as VeryDarkMan blamed the government for the state of public health care, and the medical communicator Aproko Doctor addressed the episode in a long post on October 18, pointing to weaknesses in emergency care. The death came months after Toluwanisings and members of his band survived a road accident while returning from a ministration, though the family has not linked the two events.
Toluwanisings led his ministry with a Yoruba-inflected style of praise and worship and was known for lively performances that drew audiences into singing. His songs include “Kos’Oluwa Laye,” “Unreserved Praise,” “A Very Big God,” “Onibuore,” “E Lagbara” and “Owo Re Meji Meji.”
He had collaborated with gospel artists including Tosin Bee and Adeyinka Alaseyori. Tributes came from across Nigeria’s entertainment world, among them the actresses Funke Akindele and Mercy Johnson, the singer Dare Justified, and Mr. Agba, whose real name is Ayo Ajewole.
Friends, relatives and fellow ministers gathered at the singer’s home in the Alakia area of Ibadan on October 15. An aide to Osun State’s governor also mourned him as a son of the soil.
He is survived by his wife and two young daughters. The couple married about five years ago, and he had described her publicly as his backbone. Mr. Agba urged the singer’s friends to keep supporting the widow long after the funeral, saying grief does not end with the burial.
The family has appealed to the public for help for her and the children, and it has announced a Night of Tributes for Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the Hall of Grace, Jogor Centre, in Ibadan.
Burial inside a family home is a long-standing practice in many Yoruba communities, though a number of families, particularly those in cities, now choose cemeteries or church grounds. Mr. Olayemi said he is appealing to his daughter-in-law and to everyone involved in the arrangements to let him honor what he wants for his son.
