Do2dtun says Nigerian awards shouldn’t leave home. Headies boss Ayo Animashaun fires back with a visa claim, and now everyone’s talking about it.
What started as a simple argument about where Nigerian awards should be held has turned into a public showdown. And yes, there’s a visa allegation in the mix.
On one side is popular OAP Do2dtun, whose real name is Adedotun Kayode. On the other is Ayo Animashaun, the founder of The Headies. It got personal very quickly.
Do2dtun wasn’t happy that the Headies holds its ceremony outside Nigeria. His view is that Nigerian awards should stay rooted at home, close to the industry they’re meant to celebrate.
He put it in a way that got people thinking: “Have you ever seen them take the Grammys out of America before?”
He also pointed to the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards as an example of an award that keeps its local identity. For him, an award should stand on its own and not bend to one person’s interests. That independence, he said, is exactly what brands are willing to pay for.
Ayo Animashaun clearly didn’t take it lightly. He had also recently called out artistes who chase foreign awards but skip the Headies, so this is a sore spot.
Then he made a big claim. According to him, Do2dtun slid into his DMs asking for help with an American visa to attend an event abroad. When Ayo couldn’t help, he says, Do2dtun got bitter and started criticising. He asked if this was really about the Headies or about personal interests, and he called it hypocrisy.
Do2dtun wasn’t having it. He denied the claim and challenged Ayo to name whoever supposedly asked for the visa.
Read X Tweets between Do2dtun and Ayo Animashaun
He also said he’s been to the US many times and that his daughters were born there, so a visa isn’t the issue. He insisted the criticism was never about Ayo personally. It’s about the culture and the industry as a whole.
He questioned what the awards held in Nigeria had really done for artistes, too. He’s attended them often, supported them, and even presented awards twice, so he says he knows what he’s talking about.
His message to Ayo was blunt. He won’t back down until Ayo comes clean, and the respect he once had is “off the table.”
Right now, it’s one person’s word against the other’s. The visa claim comes from Ayo, and Do2dtun flatly denies it.
Still, the bigger question is easy to see. Should a Nigerian award ceremony leave Nigeria, or should it stay home? Fans will probably keep debating that for a while.
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