Head of Communications of Charterhouse, George Quaye has condemned dancehall artistes, Shatta Wale and Stonebwoy, over the commotion that marred Saturday’s Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA) event.
According to him, the artistes are to blame for the incident and must take responsibility for their actions since they both exercised poor judgement leading to the fracas.
Speaking on the Point of View on Citi TV, he said Shatta Wale had no business on the VGMA stage at the time his fellow dancehall artiste Stonebwoy was called up to receive an award.
He said Stonebwoy must equally be criticized for pulling out a gun on stage.
“Both acts were wrong and we need to call that out. In all realism and pragmatism, Shatta Wale had no business getting up at that point….You know there are security personnel at the place, Stonebwoy had the option to stand there or leave the place. But when your people go and decide to fight, now my security who have to focus on stopping the Shatta team now have to stop you and stop them,” he said.
The scuffle on the stage last Saturday has been a subject of many conversations in the country as it has been widely reported in local and international media.
While Stonebwoy was up the VGMA stage taking his award, Shatta Wale, his rival on the music scene, was seen moving towards the stage with a host of others presumed to be his fans.
The security on stage provided cover for Stonebwoy and the few others already up the stage but Stonebwoy’s manager allegedly engaged in fisticuffs with a member of the team moving with Shatta Wale.
The incident degenerated into pandemonium with one Nii Amoo spraying pepper spray according to Police report.
Stonebwoy also pulled out a gun in the process but there was no sound of a gun fire.
According to Mr. George Quaye, some crew members and other guests had to be rushed to the hospital due to the effects of the use of the pepper spray while some technical equipment were tampered with in the process.
He also told Bernard Avle on Point of View that a sizable number of patrons of the event left the 5,000 seater-capacity Dome which was the venue for the event due to the incident.
The event was halted for nearly an hour but continued, however with an altered program lineup with the Artiste of the Year and Song of the Year awards not presented.
Some have suggested that Shatta Wale and his team’s walk up to the stage was to congratulate Stonebwoy for the award but Stonebwoy and his team believe that Shatta Wale was up to harm them.
Stonebwoy later on during the show apologized for the incident.
“I only had to react out of natural instincts because we all know how premeditative some people can be. We’ve seen on social media the threats and everything so we couldn’t come in unprepared because anything could have happened as you guys saw. I come in peace and I go in peace and I apologize to the whole masses of Ghana that the Awards is going to continue, he said.
He again in a press release apologized for the incident and said his team had begun taking actions to review their security system and also find ways of ensuring that such incident do not recur.
Shatta Wale is yet to officially apologize for his action.
The two were arrested on Sunday evening and have been charged.
They were granted bail on Monday afternoon after spending a night in police custody.
