Davido, Abu Salami
By Our Reporter
Weeks after Nigerian football administrator and former president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) from 2014 to 2022, Amaju Pinnick called out on popular Nigerian singer, David Adeleke popularly known as Davido for not showing up for a show in Warri after collecting the sum $94,600, another Nigerian businessman, Abu Salami, has accused music superstar David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido of threatening to kill him after breaching their business contract.
Salami accused Davido of breaching the contract which he was worth over N200 million.
Speaking with SaharaReporters, Salami said that he is into grassroots football business.
According to him, football talents across Africa register on his platform and get the opportunity to showcase their skills to professional clubs.
He said he negotiated a contract for $500,000 with sponsors and told them he would mediate and leverage Davido’s brand, as the singer was also the ambassador of the brand sponsors.
“So I tried to get in touch with David’s friends, his family, his sisters, different people. Eventually, I ended up talking to his sister, Sharon. And then when I met Sharon, we discussed the project and she said what David wanted was N200 million and 35% of my company. And I thought, ‘That’s a bit high’.
“I mean, the N200 million is even more feasible, but 35% of my company, that is a bit on the high side because I have investors that I already dealt with in Season one. So I shook it back and forth but she was adamant, she wanted N200 million.
“Eventually, I approached the sponsors and decided to jump on board the project, and they came up with $500,000, but they only sent a part payment, which was N167 million. When they sent the money to me, I met a friend called Larry Gaga, who is also an industry personnel and promised to give him a tip if he could take me to David directly, and he did.
“When I met with David, I explained everything that I wanted to do. I explained the revenue stream that’s been the feature of the project, I explained how long we could do the project for the influence it has on the society, the impact it has on the children, everything and he said it was a fantastic project.”
Salami said Davido agreed to work with him and asked him how much he could give and “I said I have N100 million”.
He continued, “I didn’t go there with the contract, I only wanted to go and talk to him but because I saw he was interested, he accepted me properly. The kind of brand he is, the type of person he is on social media. I went to the bank with his staff, Lathy and I paid N100 million on the first day, 40 minutes after I met David, into his account directly.”
He further explained that two days after he paid the N100 million to Davido, he sent the contract to Davido and “David said he would send it to his lawyer, so his lawyer will get back to me on the contract”.
He further narrated, “I reached out to him about two weeks later, and said, David, I would like to shoot the first commercial for the show so we can get the shot. Meanwhile, I have not received the contract back yet, but I just thought they were probably still looking into the contract to make it a title, whatever it is. I signed my own part of the contract but David hasn’t signed his.”
He said it was when he told Davido they should shoot the first commercial that he noticed that he might have a problem working with Davido.
“I spent N8 million on shooting the first commercial, and David didn’t turn up,” he said.
“He left me hanging. When I called him in the evening to find out what happened, he said he was travelling and that’s why he couldn’t make it. I took my loss.
“I set up the next commercial shoot again; this time around, I spent N9 million but David didn’t turn up again. I went to Larry and complained to him and he said I should not be angry, that David was really busy this period because he had a lot of shows. I took the second loss again, that was last year.
“Eventually, I set up a third shoot at Onikan Stadium and we rented a generator, lights, equipment, and everything to make it big shoots hoping that I would be able to achieve more things on that day since we started very early, David did not turn up.”
He said Davido called and said he had to be close to his house and the toilet and that the only way he could do the shoot was for Salami to go to his house.
“I ran to David’s house with all of my team. We managed to do the shoot for like 40 minutes. David said he had to go to the toilet again. Anyway, we had to leave but we got something.
“I went back home and I wanted to edit but during the editing stage, I realised that the sound wasn’t good. I reached out to David again and said I needed sound but David said I will pay him, that I promised him I would pay him N50 million every month.
“Eventually, I paid them another N15 million making this N130 million and no contracts. I got the sound, I did the sound and I sent it to the sponsors, the sponsors were happy and said I should keep on with the project.
“And then I approached David again and said, ‘Please, let us do the press conference so we can roll the show out,’ but his son died a day before the press conference. So I can’t blame him for that one. I lost another N10 million on the press conference.”
Salami said he went to Davido’s father’s house every day for two weeks and bought “food, pizza for the security guards and everybody around David”.
“Every day I was doing this,” he said.
“At the time I reached out to David again to check up on his health because the loss was massive, he said he had to go to Qatar and do a football show in Qatar, that the football show was very important to him, that they paid him a lot of money.”
Salami said that in January 2023, he asked Davido if they could start but he said they had to hold on because he had a concert to do, release his album and also listed many other things.
“I said, ‘No, David, you can’t do this. Our sponsors have been on me, they would pull the plug at any point in time because of your lack of participation. They’re not having it. You have to understand that you have been paid to do your job, please you have to fulfill the terms of the contract and also where is the contract?’ But he said he would get it to me, that I have not finished paying them and when I finish paying them, they would give me the contract.
“After that, I started to notice that David started to extort me – ‘Abu, send me N10 million, please. Please, send me N5 million, send me N4.5 million, I want to pay for my hotel.’ To this anyway, I was obliging him because I thought it was going to be good for the money. But the one that stood out the most was the hotel bill.
“Because even after paying for the hotel bill, the extra charges they took on the bill, the owners of the hotel started calling me to make payment on behalf of David, and I’m saying I’m not part of that 30BG, I only did a favour by paying these guys’ first payment for the hotel.”
While in Davido’s apartment, Salami said he told him they should do the second press conference or the sponsors would pull out. He said Davido asked him to choose a date and “I chose the date. I stayed in David’s house to make sure he was available for three days”.
He said, “The morning before the day of the press conference, David sent me a text message. ‘Abu, I can’t make it to the press conference, I have to take my wife to dinner.’ I begged David till about 2 a.m. David didn’t turn up to the press conference. I went and did the press conference by myself.
“When I finished the press conference, I went back to David’s apartments. David was at the poolside with like 20 boys drinking and smoking, and I said to him, ‘Why, David, why? Chioma is not here, you weren’t taking your wife anywhere. Even if you were, why did you decide to spoil this for me?’ And he said to me, ‘Abu, I told you to cancel the press conference, you did not do it. I will show you.’ I said, ‘David, you’re not God.’ And from then on, as I left there, David blocked me on all social media accounts.
“From that time till now. I haven’t seen David with my two eyes. Remember, after the first press conference, I had to roll out the show. So I paid like 16 other influencers – Tasha, Tonto Dike, Portable, Mr Jollof, a lot of comedians, all kinds of people, Big Brother influencers. I spent about N21 million on influencers to promote the show because David did not participate and David did not make a single post about it, not even on his stories.
“Eventually, I picked Tunde Ednut and I paid Tunde Ednut $350,000 to influence the show but David called Tunde Ednut and told him to take it down, totally sabotaging the show, and this is a person who has collected N176 million from me as at the time of the press conference.
“And he had already wasted the better part of another over N40 million, making everything in total N280 million that was exposed to David. And I sent him a chat from another account, and I said, David, you are evil and will not prevail. This wickedness you’re doing, you will not succeed.
“After then, I have been to 20 different states in Nigeria and in all the states that I went to, David did not support, pay or post or do anything to aid the show.”
Salami said that at that point, the sponsors were furious and they pulled out, leaving him alone to carry the burden of the show.
“I finished all the screenings and I had to do a camp for all the boys that were selected in all the states that we found. 106 boys turned out to camp and I thought of how I could feed the boys for five weeks. I took a loan and I was able to finish the show two weeks ago.
“As soon as I finished the show, I decided to deal with him legally. But a day after the show finished, I saw that David had also collected money from the NFF President, Amaju Pinnick and did not fulfil the terms of the contract.
“This is no more a celebrity factor or any problem, David is actually a thief.”
On the alleged case of assault orchestrated by Davido, Salami said, “No, he did not assault me. I posted a video of David in the club yesterday, having a scuffle with a guy and they were beating his bouncers. It was not with me. People just assumed it was me in the video.
“The person they were beating is David’s security police officers and his bouncer for firing a gun at the club.
“Right now, I’m going to obviously talk to the police, the EFCC, the SIS, CIC of police, before we go on to anything legal. The next thing I’m going to do is I’m going to protest and do a march at all his sponsors’ places and then eventually to his father’s house.
“I need them to bring him to book because he can’t keep stealing from people. It is not done.”
Speaking on how his issues with Davido had affected him and his business, Salami lamented, “David has affected my health. My state of mind, my peace. I’ve never for one day had to worry about the safety of my life. For David to actually send threats to me and his friends are sending threats to me, that they are going to f*** me up. David is a threat and a danger to me right now.”
Efforts to reach Davido’s manager, Asa Asika for comments were not successful as he did not answer calls from our correspondent. He also did not reply to a message sent to him.
