Four clear months after the second Ghana Movie Awards was held in Accra last December, winners are yet to receive their trophies, the only thing they have to show for it, and it has taken none other than Nigerian veteran actor Alex Usifo to make the disclosure.
Usifo who won the award for Best African Collaboration for his role in the movie Off The Hook, called Showbiz from Nigeria to express his disappointment that the organisers had not fulfilled their promise of returning their plaques to them after taking it from them on the night of the awards.
Speaking on phone last week, Usifo who sounded let-down at the turn of events said that on the night of the awards, the organisers requested the winners to take pictures with the statuettes after which they were taken away and were told that they will be sent over to them in Nigeria in a couple of weeks.
�It�s been four months and not even a word has been sent to us and I think that does not give Ghanaians a good reputation in the eyes of Nigerians so far as these award ceremonies are concerned. We are not kids who should be toyed around with. We are big people in the industry and therefore we don�t deserve to be treated this way�, Usifo lamented.
He said that they travelled all the way from Nigeria to come for an award only for them to arrive at the event and be told by the organisers that, the award would be taken from them on that day but will be returned after two weeks with their names engraved on it but that that never happened.
Usifo also lamented the possible domestic problems that the absence of the trophy could cause in his marriage saying �I am just thankful to God for giving me such a an understanding wife else she would have concluded that I came to Ghana to do something else because I left home saying I was coming for an award but returned empty handed. This is uncalled for�.
When Showbiz contacted Phred Nuamah, the founder of the Ghana Movie Awards, he explained that the initial plan was to get them nice trophies with their names embossed on them which,he said, would serve as an �unforgettable and indelible artifact� but their initial plans of delivering the trophies in two weeks was thwarted by financial constraints.
�We wanted our trophies to be artistically different from all others and because of this, we decided to have them made in Japan thinking that we could beat the deadline and deliver them as promised but it�s unfortunate things haven�t worked our way�, he said.
Nuamah went further to blame the delay the lack of funds saying that �it is difficult to get things like because money is needed to sort it out.� He was not so sure when the trophies would arrive from Japan to present to Usifo who described the turn of events as �disrespectful on the part of organizers �.
He disclosed that he is giving the organisers more time to fulfill their promise but if things dont turn out as expected, he would have no choice than to advice his other colleagues to be wary of the organizers of the Ghana Movie Awards.
Showbiz has learnt that it was not only Nigerian winners Usifo and Patience Ozorkor who did not receive their trophies on the day but also award winners from Ghana. When Showbiz contacted Akwasi Boadi a.k.a Akrobeto who won the Best Actor in a Lead Role (local language) award, he said all his efforts to reach the organisers to ask about his trophy had failed.
�I haven�t received any word from them since they took the trophy back that night. This award would not live my life for me, and since it does not come with anything, I have even forgotten about it�, he said.
Bisa Kdei on the other hand whose song Azonto Ghost won the Best Original Movie Sound Track said �according to Phred Nuamah the awards were taken from us for our names to be embossed on them and that we would soon receive it but as for me i dont have a problem with the delay�.
According to Ahmed Banda, owner of Bandex the house behind Rahim Banda who took home the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (English), they are also waiting to hear from the organisers to tell them when their awards would be ready.
� We have not heard anything from them since that night and we will not call anybody because they are in the right position to communicate to us what is happening and when our award would be ready� he said.
Source: Delali Sika / Graphic Showbiz
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