Court Awards King Sunny Ade N500m but who will pay this?

This is the problem with the Justice system in Nigeria. King Sunny Ade filed a complaint in 1975 claiming that a contract dispute arose between him and the two companies culminating to a judgement delivered by Justice Dosumu presiding over a Lagos high court. In the said judgement the court ordered the companies to return the master tapes of the original musical works produced under the label of the two companies by Sunny Ade and his green sport back to him, but before the master tape could be returned the chairman chief Executive Office of the two companies Chief Bolarinwa Abioro died.

Consequently, in a bid to retrieve the master Tapes Sunny Ade in 1997 dragged the two companies before a federal high court in Lagos, joined as co-defendants are, Lati Alagbada, Record manufacturing Nigeria limited, Ibukunola printers, Alhaja Awawu Ade Amodu,and M.O. Alagbada, who he alleged have been using the master tapes to produce inferior qualities of his musical works and sell them to members of the public thereby depriving him of his means of livelihood.

A Federal High Court on Friday, November 13, awarded King Sunny Ade N500 million as damages for copyright infringement. Also included was an additional N3 million for prosecuting the case. This is 30 years after the case was filed.

Now, some of the people involved in the case are dead and the companies do not exist anymore. Who will pay N500m to King Sunny Ade? The Justice system in Nigeria will have to work that out