Thousands ask 8th AFRIMA to disqualify Brymo over ‘hate speech’

Thousands of people have called for the disqualification of Brymo, the singer, from the 8th All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA), over his contentious remarks about the Igbo community. 

AFRIMA, the annual awards event organised to reward excellence in the African music industry, is expected to hold its 8th edition on January 15.

Brymo and some other African artistes were nominated under the ‘Songwriter of the Year’ category.

Last week, the 36-year-old put out a derogatory post about the Igbo community, which attracted a wave of criticism on Twitter.

In response to the post, Charles Ogundele launched a petition, in which he demanded the singer’s disqualification from the annual awards event over what he described as Byrmo’s “hateful messages against the Igbos”.

In the petition titled ‘Stop Brymo from winning the All Africa Music Award for Song Writer of the Year’, Ogundele referred to the ‘Ara’ crooner as an “ethnic bigot”.

“Brymo recently put up a series of hateful messages on Twitter toward the Igbo tribe of Nigeria, going as far as retweeting a tweet which said that all Igbos are senseless. In one of his tweets, he wrote “f*ck omo Igbo”, which translates to “f**k the Igbo people,” it reads.

“His actions are ones which spark disunity and hatred in a multicultural nation that Nigeria is. Preventing him from wining the All Africa Music Award would send a strong message to him, and people like him, that he can’t get away with such blatant ethnic bigotry.”

As of the time of this report, more than 2500 people have signed the petition.

Paul Okoye had earlier taken a swipe at Brymo in a thinly-veiled message.