CONTESTANTS SAY IGT WAS FIXED "IT'S A FRAUD!"

 By Dr Innocent Chidumebi Okonkwo

A competition for upcoming artists in Nigeria, popularly known as I got talent Naija contest ( IGT) held recently in Port Harcout Rivers state is becoming a scandal over some accusations of fraud made by the contestants. One of the Artists who is an Indigene of Aguleri with a stage name, "Natty" told OMT reporters that they were busy gathering votes from their fans without noticing that it was going to be rigged in favor of an artist who came distant 15 position based on the number of votes he gathered. He said the puported winner, MC Odionwere did not get much vote therefore should not had been declared winner of the competition.

Expressing his ordeal in the hand of the organizers, Naty said he persuaded his fans to vote for him and he got 4,677 votes at the cost of #100 per vote which placed him on top of the table as the winner.

"The agreement was that an artist with the highest number of votes should be declared winner followed by 1st and 2nd runner ups using the same criteria"

" Unfortunately, the Organizers rushed to their platform and deleted all our past conversations and agreements before the competition to avoid being implicated without knowing that some body like me screenshot and saved the conversations for reference purposes " 

Natty said he urged his fans to keep voting him until he got the highest number of votes in the competition but lamented that the organizers changed the goal post at the middle of the game by awarding first position to an artists that supposedly came 15th on the table according to the number of votes he got.

"The organizers did not even announce the runner ups neither did they compensate them as contained in the agreement. What they did was to rig the competition in favor of a man that came 15th position.

When OMT reporters contacted the Chief organizer of the show, Mr Dickson Enonong, he denied the allegations.

"The rigging allegations are absurd and distract from the incredible milestones our organization and the delegates experienced this weekend,"

" The criteria for winning was not determined only by the number of votes but the performance in the competition. Our judges were impartial and there were other participants who enjoyed the show and it's transparency".

He said his organization is planning to compensate artists like Natty for pulling great number of votes and also said that his organization has also helped in exposing and making the young artists very popular in the Nigeria music industry.