Olushola Omogbehin
Following the dramatic event at the burial of late gospel singer, Bunmi Akinnaanu, popularly known as Omije Ojume, last week, new revelations have emerged as her ex-husband, Rotimi Adeoye, narrated his own side of story.
In a YouTube broadcast aired on Yeye Kudi Courtroom TV, a woman played a recorded phone conversation with a man said to be Adeoye, where he explained his marriage to the late singer, the reasons for their separation and his strained relationship with their children.
According to Punch, Akinaanu (Omije) and Adeoye married in 2006, in a court ceremony at the Surulere Magistrate Court, followed by a church wedding at ECWA Church in Mushin but the marriage broke down around 2010 and was legally dissolved between 2017 and 2018.
According to the narration, the union was said to have been affected by migration challenges to the United Kingdom, financial difficulties and personal disagreements, with custody of their children becoming a central point of conflict.
Thereafter, Adeoye, who is said to be based in UK has since been said to have remarried while Omije Ojumi came back to Nigeria and raised the children as a single mother until her death from an illness in late 2025.
After the burial, Adeoye broke his silence through a series of voice notes, videos and interviews circulated online where he alleged that the marriage crumbled due to infidelity and deceit.
According to him, he met Akinaanu in the UK around 2000–2001 and married her after securing a work visa. He explained that their first child, Jomiloju, was born in London and single handedly took care of her after Akinaanu returned to Nigeria in 2010.
He said Akinaanu took their daughter to Nigeria without his consent under the pretense of a short visit, shortly before the child’s UK residency documents were due.
He denied abandoning his children and said all his efforts to reach them were blocked including through schools which resulted in police case. he said that he sent financial support—sometimes amounting to thousands of pounds—and paid school fees, but was cut off from them for over eight years.
Adeoye further alleged that the children were brainwashed against him and lived what he described as an “underground lifestyle” in Nigeria. He called for DNA tests and vowed to pursue custody legally, while maintaining that he still loved the children and sought reconciliation.
Speaking emotionally about his daughter, he said, “I bathed that child. We were together until she was seven.”
Tensions according to him started after the birth of their second child because his name was excluded from the child’s birth certificate and he was later denied access even when he funded the delivery. The last time he saw his son was on the child’s first birthday and every attempts to reunite with both children through planned visits to the UK did not succeed.
Repeated reconciliation efforts he said, failed because of prolonged separations. He alleged that extramarital relationships and external religious influences encouraging Omije Ojumi to remain in Nigeria.
During the service of song of Akinaanu, her daughter, Jomiloju, gave an emotional tribute which went viral. She praised her mother as “the best woman in the world” while accusing her father of abandonment.
“Ever since my father left me, he did not care. He did not call. Imagine now he’s calling when he knows that someone has left,”
The family of the husband alleged that the children had been manipulated because all their efforts to reconcile before the burial were frustrated which led to the two families expressing their own positions in the public.
