By Efe Omorogbe
KORA boss, Ernest Coovi Adjovi
KORA AWARDS 2010: A CALL FOR MASS BOYCOTT.
The turn of events over the last couple of months has made it imperative for us to convene this parley to formally communicate our position on the state of affairs as it affects the Kora Awards to the artistes and their labels/management, the media and Nigerians in general.
The Kora office in Nigeria has operated as liaison between the Nigerian contingent and the central secretariat for over a decade handling communication, promotion, application and general logistics. The quality of representation and high number of nominations and awards earned by Nigerian artistes is testimony of the quality of work put in by the Z Mirage-ran Nigerian Kora Awards office.
The decision to bring the awards to Nigeria was one that we applauded and we worked tirelessly to provide all the necessary support for the property owners to succeed in the bid to stage a grand event in Nigeria.
We are aware of the fact that the executive producer, Mr Ernest Coovi Adjovi signed a contract with the Cross River State Ministry of Culture and Tourism to stage the awards in Calabar and then, went into another contract with the Lagos state government to stage the same awards in Lagos. We are also aware that Mr. Adjovi has received payment from Cross Rivers state.
Since, it has been practically impossible to reach Mr. Adjovi and resolve the mystery surrounding the business of staging the awards in Nigeria. All efforts made by the Nigerian office to bring Mr. Adjovi to the table to iron out the outstanding issues and pave the way for the fulfilment of his contractual obligation to his Nigerian sponsor(s) have been unsuccessful.
The Kora All Africa Music Awards is holding this year but not in Nigeria. Government officials, music industry stake-holders, artistes and most of all, the Nigerian tax-payers are being asked to participate in SMS voting and watch the event take place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso- funded by Nigerian tax payers.
Rising from the stakeholders’ parley of Monday 22nd March 2010 held at the Nigerian Kora office, the following decisions were reached:
i. The Nigerian Kora office is calling for a mass boycott of the 2010 event by all artistes – nominated or not; managers, label executives, jurors, presenters, media reps, reporters and government officials.
ii. The Kora office, in association with relevant organizations like NARI, PMAN, AM.B-Pro, MORAN , etc (under the aegis of the Nigerian Music Industry Coalition) shall work to ensure that Nigerian stake-holders who refuse to heed the call by legitimizing the Ouagadougou event with their presence be exempted from any project executed by these organizations and the governments of Lagos and Cross River states.
iii. The Nigeria Kora office stands in firm agreement with the position of the Lagos state government that has demanded the immediate return of equipment purchased with Nigeria’s funds but taken away to Benin Republic for a build up event and never returned.
iv. That Mr. Adjovi heeds the summons of the … court which he remains in contempt of for repeated failure to appear on various dates of hearing.
v. That all stake-holders explore all acceptable means to ensure that the issues are resolved as soon as possible.
– Being a statement written by Now Muzik boss Efe Omorogbe and issued today by Zmirage Multimedia, KORA’s official partners in Nigeria and other music industry stakeholders.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The KORA All Africa Music Awards is scheduled to hold in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso on April 4. Efforts to reach Adjovi or his reps were unsuccessful as at time of publishing.
1 comment
Efe
Why don't you find out the coruption by your county people before talking? They all failed in their obligations to KORA and took huge sums from the money paid to KORA. Tokunbo Afikuyomi did not do anything such that the Gov was mad with him as well as Tinubu.