You recall that Olamide had fallen out
with Mavin boss Don Jazzy after his
protege Lil Kesh didn’t win the Next
Rated category that was won by Reekado
Banks, Don Jazzy’s protege. Excerpts
continue below…
Are you worried that the recent
controversy may have marred
the reputation you have built in
10 years?
I am not worried and there is nothing to
worry about. I could if it was my meal
ticket but it is not. Although we have had
sponsors, but in the past five or six years,
we have organised the Headies Awards
singlehandedly, and this requires a lot of
financial commitment. Artistes always
disagree with awards. Some were vocal
while others were not. This is not the
first time something like this is
happening. The screening team put in a
lot of work.
What system was adopted for
the voting process?
There was an online voting system which
collects the phone numbers and email of
voters and the votes are automatically
counted. That way, you would see who
won and who did not. It is devoid of any
form of rigging because you cannot vote
more than once in one hour. There are
different voting categories and some are
strictly left for the judges to decide. It is
easy to discover if anyone voted or not.
Two years ago, we stopped the SMS
voting because our SMS partner
complained that people came to them to
lobby for votes. We did not want our
credibility to become an issue. Artistes
should learn to check the year under
review and understand the definition of
each category. People should always vote,
or else another artiste will win over the
one they like.
Were the awards lobbied for?
People try to lobby and it is not just right
to mention names. Some have even
offered to buy the cars. We bought three
out of the eight cars that have been given
out. We started giving out cars when the
category became big and we did not
want to stop. Revelation of the Year is
supposed to be bigger than Next Rated
but people attach more importance to it
because it comes with a price and
Nigerians like freebies. With all sense of
humility and responsibility, the artistes
cannot pay us and we cannot collect
money from them. It is not in our
character and we are not greedy. The
award plaque is a 21-karat gold plaque
and it is mounted on marble. We want to
genuinely support the system.
Some people are of the opinion
that some of the winning were
undeserved.
If you do not vote, the win would be
undeserved. It is the same thing as a
political election. No one has the right to
complain if they did not vote. The voting
was poor this year. Most people took the
voting for granted and did not vote, so
how can they decide who should win
and who should not? They should find
out if the winners did anything other
than just turning up for the awards. At
least, someone would be angry enough
to say we collected some money from
him or her. We deserve some respect if
that has not happened in 10 years, why
should it occur at this time? We had an
average of 500 nominees and over 109
winners.
Some also believe the results
were influenced
I would feel offended if i’m ever asked
whether we collected money from any
artiste. I am like a father to them and I try
not to meddle or prefer any artiste over
the other. We did not influence the
results submitted by the screening team
and we also did not reveal the identities
of all members of the jury. People have
gone to the extent of threatening lives if
their artistes do not win. I have reported
some of them to the police too.
Fans believe Olamide should
apologize to you. Has he?
Olamide is like a son to me. What he did
was to the Headies and not to me but he
has apologised to me personally. He
knows the right thing to do because The
Headies is a platform that has celebrated
a lot of artistes including him. He and Don
Jazzy apologised to me the next day. As
the executive producer of the award, I do
not act unilaterally, I have a board and we
have a disciplinary team and very soon,
they will come up with a statement on
how to handle the whole iss