Salawa Abeni responds to Kollington Ayinla's marriage claims

Waka music star Salawa Abeni has reacted to Fuji singer Kollington Ayinla's claim that she is still his legal wife. Abeni says she did not leave their marriage.

This comes more than a year after Kollington made this claim. Abeni spoke about it for the first time during an interview on Oyinmomo TV.

In May 2025, PREMIUM TIMES reported that Kollington, in an episode of the Teju Babyface Podcast, insisted Abeni was not just his girlfriend but his lawful wife.

After her marriage to the late Leader Records founder, Lateef Adepoju ended in 1986, Abeni married Kollington. She had two children with Adepoju and three with Kollington before their marriage broke down in 1994.

After leaving Adepoju, she joined Kollington’s record label. They worked on albums like I Love You (1988) and We Are the Children (1989).

In 2023, Abeni introduced Rasheed Adahunse, who is the Comptroller and Commandant of the Nigeria Customs Training College, as her husband.

Kollington, on the other hand, is married to several women. In a 2014 interview with The Nation, he denied claims of having up to 15 wives, calling that number an exaggeration.

During her talk on Oyinmomo TV, the 65-year-old Abeni said she never left Kollington. She stated, “How the pain of ants is felt can only be told by those they bite. Who I am, only those who love me can explain. If they don’t like someone somewhere, they don’t take the needle. I won’t say more than that regarding my marriage to Kollington Ayinla. I read an interview online where he said, ‘I’m still his wife.’

“I indeed had children for him, but I wasn’t the one who left. It wasn’t a matter of showing off, or stubbornness, or something I did. My mother didn’t have two husbands; she had a rival. She had all her children for my father only. Destiny won’t go unfulfilled. May my God continue to protect me. That’s one of the songs in my discography, Iriri.”

Abeni also shared that her experiences during the end of their marriage inspired her 1991 album, Experience.

Though she did not go into detail about her relationship with Kollington, she mentioned they are still connected through their children.

“When that thing happened, I recorded an album titled Experience. In the album, I sang about how I got home and met my friends eating; they asked me to join them, but that wasn’t what my situation needed at the time.

“I got to a beer parlour, and my friends called me to join them for a drink, but that wasn’t what my situation needed. I got home and talked to my lover, and he asked that we be intimate, but that wasn’t my problem. My lover asked me what happened, and I said my life experiences were what were weighing on me. We’re still connected because of the children between us.