Patrons of the KORA Awards have been thrown into total uncertainty when they realized that everything is not well with the erstwhile beloved African equivalent of the Grammys-THE KORA.
Headlines screamed in Nigeria over the weekend about the appalling nature of the awards after a series of investigations regarding the recklessness or bankruptcy of the KORA event organizers and stakeholders.
In Ghana, a number of artistes have won Kora awards- KojoAntwi, VIP and Shasha Marley. Nevertheless, until Shasha Marley won it some two years ago, everything seemed to be calm. However, hell broke loose when Blakk Rasta questioned how come that year, April,2010 two reggae artistes (Shasha Marley of Ghana and King Wadada, Nigeria) won the same award for Reggae Act Of The Year.
Both artistes were so embarrassed of the situation they refused to mention that there were two winners. They both claimed they each was the right winner.
Two years down the line, the two artistes are yet to get the $20,000 prize money they were promised even after several calls to the organizers demanding their prize. The biggest winner for that year was P-square from Nigeria who themselves are still wallowing in the arena of absolute desperation about their unfulfilled award money promise by KORA.
“I paid my own plane fare from Nigeria to Burkina Faso for the KORA awards just as Shasha Marley. The event organizers gave us nothing. We paid our own air fares and others. They are fraud!”
Speaking from his base in Lagos, Nigeria on TAXI DRIVER in the BOILING POT, King Wadada bemoaned the situation and referred to the organizers are bogus and fraudulent. Shasha refused to talk on the issue obviously embarrassed at the turn of events.
It could be recalled that Shasha Marley made a lot of noise in the Ghanaian media after receiving the Kora Award in April, 2010 amidst a lot of controversy. As it stands now, two years after defrauding artistes, will the organizers of the KORA awards be man enough to show their real faces as their official website keeps going offline as frequently as the traffic lights change. They obviously are not being able to pay to keep their website online regularly let alone pay the fares of nominees to attend the ceremony.
Several calls to the personal assistant of the CEO of the KORA awards, Victoria Okong went unanswered. When it was finally answered a female voice said, “NO COMMENT FOR NOW.’