Opinions of Friday, 24 May 2019

Columnist: Frank Edem Adofoli

Banning Stonebwoy, Shatta Wale sign of irresponsibility

CEO of Charterhouse CEO of Charterhouse

Banning these top two Ghanaians musicians or artists for being part of future Vodafone Ghana Music Award is not the solution to fixing the security issues or threats that occurred at the last event.

Charterhouse as organizers and host, hosting this event for two decades should take responsibility for their security lapses and apologize to the patrons for endangering their lives on the night of the awards.

That's what shows that the event or the award scheme is mature and can be trusted in the future. They should accept their mistakes and learn from this event. Shifting blames to these artistes just makes them immature to host the same event next year.

They were the host and have every right to maintain standards, protocol, etc on the night. But they failed and left the two artists to do whatever they wanted on stage. They allowed the two guys to run the show with their security and discretion. Proper security structures from the host would have prevented Stonebwoy from bring a gun to the venue.

If Charterhouse had a good security arrangememt or protocol in place, they would have stopped Shatta Wale from mounting the stage without any provocation. They would have been in charged of the number of people who follow these award receipents to the stage but unfortunately what happened on that night was different.

There will be more rivalry in the music industry as time goes on, followers of such people will still attend future events. What structures have organizers put in place to stop future occurrences? Put the structures in place and let these artists test the systems next time, that is how you know it's working.

Charterhouse should leave these two artists for the court to deal with them. Let the law work.

As for the court, the best punishment is to give them two weeks community service. Ghana has lots of issues with dirt and sanitation. Let stonebwoy clean Ashiaman whlist Shatta Wale cleans Accra.

The two can invite their loyal followers and fans to join them. This is how you help people like that to change, not by giving them a fine or prison sentence.

Charterhouse in the future will need these two artists and if everyone will do his or her homework well, we will all enjoy future music awards without violence or threats.