Gospel Singer Toluwanisings Dies at 41 After Aide Says Ibadan Hospitals Turned Him Away
His personal assistant says the worship leader was taken to as many as eight hospitals after he collapsed. The city’s largest teaching hospital says it has no record of him.
By EEW Magazine Online News Editors
Nigerian gospel singer Toluwanisings, born Olayemi Bayonile Bolaji, died Oct. 14 at age 41. (Photo: Instagram/illustration by EEW Magazine)
Hours after he led worshipers in song at a gospel gathering in Ibadan, Nigeria, on Tuesday night, Toluwanisings collapsed at his home. Those with him tried to revive him, then began a frantic search for emergency care that, according to his personal assistant, took them to as many as eight hospitals across the city. Some facilities said their doctors were on strike, the aide said, and others would not admit him.
The 41-year-old husband and father of two died in the early hours of Wednesday, Oct. 14.
The singer, whose full name was Olayemi Bayonile Bolaji, had performed at In His Presence, a monthly worship and praise program hosted by gospel musician Bidemi Olaoba, Business Post Nigeria reported. His family confirmed his death in a statement posted on his Instagram page, describing him as a dearly loved husband and gospel minister. The statement also asked the public to pray for his wife and loved ones.
The family has not disclosed a cause of death.
Toluwanisings is survived by his wife and two children. (Photo: Instagram/@theayobamioni)
Toluwanisings is survived by his wife and two children. Less than three weeks before his death, he marked the couple’s fifth wedding anniversary on Instagram, thanking God for His faithfulness and writing, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” The family said funeral arrangements will be announced in due course.
In a video that circulated Thursday, personal assistant Babadunni Gbolabo said he was not present when the singer collapsed but rushed to the house after receiving a call. He said Toluwanisings had shown no sign of illness beforehand. “They tried to resuscitate him. They went helter-skelter,” Gbolabo said, according to TheCable. He said the group tried seven or eight hospitals in Ibadan, prayed throughout, and did everything it could.
Accounts of that morning differ in their details. Before the aide spoke publicly, Seun Oloketuyi, founder of the Best of Nollywood Awards, wrote on Instagram that two hospitals turned the singer away and that staff at a third pronounced him dead, Legit.ng reported.
None of the hospitals has been publicly identified, and it remains unknown whether faster treatment could have changed the outcome.
The allegations surfaced as resident doctors at University College Hospital, Ibadan’s major teaching hospital, were staging a three-day warning strike that began at 8 a.m. Monday, Oct. 12. The hospital’s chapter of the Association of Resident Doctors launched the protest over a prolonged power outage in the College of Medicine area, where many of its members live, and a resulting water shortage, according to its communique.
UCH says the singer never reached its doors on record. Funmilayo Enitan, the hospital’s public relations officer, told Saturday PUNCH that the strike was a local action within the hospital, that services had resumed, and that management had no record of him being brought there. “I was not officially informed that he was brought to UCH,” she said. Oyo State Commissioner for Health Dr. Oluwaserimi Ajetunmobi told the newspaper on Friday that she was not aware of the matter.
The Nigerian Medical Association responded by calling for stronger emergency medical services and an effective referral system, TheNigeriaLawyer reported. The association identified weak primary health care facilities, poor coordination among hospitals and the absence of an organized paramedic response system as the core failures.
Nigerian gospel singer Toluwanisings, born Olayemi Bayonile Bolaji, died Oct. 14 at age 41. (Photo: Instagram/@toluwanisings)
The association’s secretary-general, Dr. Diamond Tamunokuro, described emergency care as a critical measure of a health system’s quality and urged greater investment. The association’s national publicity secretary, Professor Olayinka Atilola, cautioned that patients and relatives often take a referral, or a hospital’s inability to manage a condition, as a rejection.
Two questions remain at the center of Toluwanisings’ final hours: which facilities his team reached and what care, if any, each one was able to offer.
Toluwanisings was born in Ikirun, Osun State, and grew up in a Muslim family, where he was known as Sodiq, according to PUNCH. He began his career performing Fuji, a Yoruba popular music with roots in Muslim communities, before converting to Christianity and devoting his voice to gospel music. In an interview with actress Biola Adebayo on her Talk to B program, which resurfaced after his death, he called giving his life to Christ the best decision he ever made. He credited his wife as his backbone through the move from Fuji to gospel ministry, Legit.ng reported.
He studied Estate Management and Valuation at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos, graduating in 2017. His career gained momentum in 2021, when comedian Woli Arole shared one of his songs online and introduced him to a far wider audience. Toluwanisings became known for a powerful voice and high-energy praise performances drawn from Yoruba musical tradition, with songs including “Unreserved Praise,” “A Very Big God,” “Onibuore” and “E Lagbara.” He led the Toluwani Gospel Music Ministry, known as TOGOMM.
His death came about three months after he and members of his band survived a serious road accident while returning from a ministry engagement in July, Within Nigeria reported.
Tributes have poured in from Nigeria’s gospel and entertainment communities. Comedian Woli Agba, who had urged fans to keep praying when news of the collapse first spread, publicly mourned him. Joining in that mourning were gospel singer Esther Igbekele and actors Funke Akindele and Muyiwa Ademola.
Online, many Nigerians have reflected on his death with stories of their own relatives lost while waiting for care. Their grief has turned a gospel singer’s final hours into a national reckoning over whether emergency treatment will be there when every minute counts.