MTV takes back Wizkid’s ‘Best Africa Act’ award

– In a highly surprising turn of events, Nigerian musician Wizkid has been stripped of the Best Africa Africa Act award he won at the recently held MTV EMAs

– The award has been given to Alikiba; a musician from Tanzania who the organizers say was the real winner of the award

– They claim an ‘error’ made them give Wizkid the award in the first place

Alikiba (R) the Tanzanian artiste who received the Best African act award after it was stripped from Wizkid

If you call 2016 the year of Wizkid, one is not wrong. The self-styled Baba Nla has had a wonderful year. Gaining more recognition on the international stage, allegedly getting signed to Sony Music, and winning a lot of awards. It is one of the awards he won that may prove to be the one major stain for Wizzy this year.

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Some days back, MTV had announced Wizkid as the winner of the Best African Act category in the 2016 edition of the MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA).  This was expected since he is the biggest artiste in Africa at the moment but suddenly the organizers made a U-turn, stripped Wizkid of the award and instead gave it to Tanzanian musician Alikiba.

The official reason given by MTV was that the award was given to Wizkid in error and that Alikiba was the true winner of the award.  See their statement below:

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Wizkid on the other hand has deleted all traces of him winning the award from all his social media accounts.


Alikiba has reacted with happiness to the news. Commenting that “Thanks to MTV for this huge honor It’s very exciting to be recognized at the MTV EMAs and I am delighted to bring home the award to my fans in Tanzania and East Africa. Thank you to my family and management.”

This is not the first time Alikiba and Wizkid have gone head to head in conflict. The two reportedly had an issue at the recently held Mombasa Rocks concert headlined by American superstar singer Chris Brown in Kenya over who would perform as the last act on stage.

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According to Pulse, Alikiba was reported in that concert as saying though Wizkid is a bigger music brand across Africa; he was more popular in Kenya and so would perform after Wizkid.