The younger brother of the late gospel singer Toluwanisings’ mother has broken his silence, accusing the paternal family of poor treatment that drove the artiste away while they were still alive.
In a video shared online on Sunday, November 1, 2026, the maternal uncle said people who truly loved the deceased would not be granting interviews about his death and burial.
“There is no way anyone in their right mind who truly loved the deceased would grant an interview on this matter, let alone one discussing how someone is living in a house and other related issues,” he said.
He was direct about why the singer kept his distance.
“The truth is, if the people granting these interviews had treated Toluwanisings well while he was alive, he would not have distanced himself from them.”
The uncle added that he had been the singer’s mentor and that hearing the full story of what Toluwanisings endured would shock people into rejecting the current public statements.
“If you heard what he went through during his lifetime, you would stone all those people going around granting interviews.”
The comments land amid a widening family rift that began after the singer, Olayemi Bayonile Bolaji (also known as Sodiq), died on October 14, 2026, after slumping at his Ibadan residence. He left behind his wife, Akanbi Elizabeth, and their two daughters.
His father, Muniru Adekunle Olayemi, and a paternal uncle, Lawal Ademola Rauf, have pushed for burial at the house the singer built in Ibadan or beside his late mother in Ikirun, Osun State. The widow has reportedly preferred a cemetery or church ground, saying she would not be comfortable living with a grave on the property.
The paternal side has also called for an investigation into the circumstances of the death before any burial proceeds.
In earlier videos, the same maternal uncle challenged the paternal family’s account of the singer’s childhood. He said the mother died when Toluwanisings was about nine months old after travelling north to join her husband in Kano, and that the maternal family took custody because they doubted the father’s ability to care for the infant. He claimed the father was largely absent from 1992 until the maternal grandmother who raised the boy died in 2007, and he invited anyone who claimed to have paid for the singer’s schooling to produce receipts.
A younger brother of the singer has separately defended the widow and said the real strain was with the wider paternal relatives, not the father himself.