Toni Payne In Messy Fight With Restuarant Owner Over Performance Fees

Just after the May Day break, an anonymous caller contacted E-Centre. In the text message, the person claimed that his life was under threat. The alarm was almost discarded, since this is an entertainment column and not for crime or human angle stories. While trying to quickly glance through the remaining portions of the text before deleting it, the Name Toni Payne showed up.

As you may already know, Toni Payne is the estranged wife of popular musician, Abolore Akande, generally known as 9ice. In fact, she is still the legal wife since they are yet to be dissolved by any court. Toni Payne is also a relevant name in the entertainment and fashion industries. She is an artiste promoter and manager. She also has franchise to various cosmetic products.

The text immediately got a priority status. On reaching the owner of the number, a whole lot was revealed to the E-Centre. The sender of the text message, one Mr. Tobiloba Ogunleye claimed that his life was in grave danger, and that the person after him was no other than Toni Payne.

Mr. Tobiloba is an established caterer in Osun State. He owns two restaurants. He co-owns the 5Vers restaurant in the University of Ife and solely owns Plate Fillers in Okuku also in Osun State. So ,what could he have done to claim that his life was threatened by Toni Payne? According to him, he was assisting a friend, Ademola Ajibola of Moreklue Entertainment, an events organising company to secure the services of Olamide, an artiste under the management of Toni Payne.

He claimed that after getting Olamide to Ife, where the artiste was meant to perform, Toni Payne did not accept the money they offered and wanted more. He said that the business got awry and Toni Payne and her aides went all out to manhandle Mr Ademola, while he fled. Ever since, he said, he had been receiving threat mails and text messages from Toni Payne.

A source close to Toni Payne told Entertainment Centre that she sees the issue from another angle. The source confirmed that they did have dealings with both Tobi and Ademola, but added that it was not as Tobi reported it. The source said that in fact, Tobi is a fraudster who had deceived both Toni Payne and the artiste.

While relaying the story as they saw it, the source said that Tobi had approached Toni Payne asking for the services of Olamide. After agreeing on the bill, they transported the artiste to Osun State by 11pm to perform at the show. On getting there, they asked Ademola, who organised the show, to pay up before Olamide would get on stage. By midnight they were still on the issue, so they decided to take the case up. He said that they got the Ademola arrested while Tobi fled. ‘The man is a thief, a scoundrel. He made us embark on a journey all the way to Ife at 11pm. Then he refused to pay. I think that is what they do. They take students’ money, and promise them that they are going to bring an artiste, at the end of the day, they will not pay the artiste his dues. We did not even want to lock Ademola up because we did not know him, it is Tobi we know. But with Ademola with us, we knew we could find Tobi. We later let Ademola go,” the source said.

But Tobi did not agree with the statement from Toni Payne’s campy. He told Entertainment Centre that he had some issues while they were bargaining. “We arrived at N200,000 for the performance and we were ready to pay.” Tobi said that he was still receiving threat calls from both Toni Payne and her aides. ‘I can show you my phone, they are just threatening me,” he said.

Tobi added: “I informed my lawyer who also made an informal report at a Police station in Ibadan. I got a call from Ademola who advised me to call Tony to clear some things which I did, but she told me that she did not need anything from me. Before then, she had threatened to deal with me with all available means and make sure I was locked up for two months. Taiwo, one of Toni’s boys approached us and slapped Ademola and broke a bottle and threatened to stab him. He could have done it but for the intervention of some friends. I was advised to leave the arena to go get money and by that time, Ademola had been bundled and taken to Lagos. He was tortured and molested all through and then taken to an area in Bariga called Ilaje. He was beaten, molested and threatened. He was denied access to us. Later, he was asked to tell them all about me so I could also be picked up, but he refused. When he was eventually released, he was forced to agree to pay N120,000 which he had to agree to, under duress. He was also told that he must call them anytime he sees me so that they could pick me up.

“Please this plea goes to all well-meaning Nigerians, the Nigerian Bar Association, the Nigerian Press and Nigerians at large to save me them. I am just a normal Nigerian with a legitimate job. She is influential and has vowed to make sure she deals with me,” Mr Tobiloba pleaded.

Somehow, a music producer, Id Cabassa seems to be involved in the whole blame game. E-Centre discovered that Id Cabassa seems to be the one trying to bring peace to both sides. The Toni payne source said that they knew Tobi, through Id Cabassa who said that he had had dealings with the business man some years back.

Mr Tobi also confirmed that Id Cabassa even helped out financially when Ademola did not have transport fare to return to Osun State.