The International Committee of the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA), has implored governments of African countries to arrest the growing cases of violent deaths against music stars on the continent just as it urged the South African authorities to expedite the process of prosecution of the killers of rapper Kiernan Forbes popularly known as AKA.

AFRIMA recalls that the 35-year-old AKA was killed in a cold-blooded shooting on February 10, 2023, at a nightclub in Durban, South Africa and the awards body is demanding that everyone linked to his gruesome murder be expeditiously brought to justice.

President and Executive Producer, AFRIMA, Mike Dada, in a statement, said governments of African nations must make deliberate efforts to prevent violent attacks against music talents, averring that the disturbing trend could potentially erode the gains recorded in the creative industry over the years if not checked.

Dada said the murder of AKA is a wake-up call to governments across the continent to scale up their security architecture to encourage the protection of talented individuals. He suggested that efforts should be sustained to checkmate the proliferation of small arms especially.

AFRIMA said the senseless killing of AKA utterly hurts African creative space, insisting that South African authorities must arrest and prosecute everyone involved in the dastardly act.

“We strongly demand from the government of South Africa to arrest and prosecute all the persons involved in the killing of AKA to serve as a deterrent to criminally-minded individuals who cut short the lives of talents at their prime. The crime deterrent is for criminals to know that there is a big chance for them to be arrested, prosecuted and convicted; we strongly call for justice to be sufficiently served in this case.

“However, this is also a call to the governments of various countries across the continent of Africa to react to this gruesome killing by addressing the challenge of the proliferation of small arms. The trend of arms proliferation in Africa has had an impact on the continent’s internal security, which has led to violence and the deaths and injury of thousands of innocent citizens including our music stars and we encourage steps that will lead to the protection of the lives of our talented stars.

“Our ideals include using the platform of AFRIMA to promote the strength of Africa and tell a positive story of the continent and we believe we can tackle poverty, inequality, unemployment, climate change and other challenges bedeviling our dear continent through music but the lives of creative talents should be protected to fully realise these lofty dreams,” he said.

Similarly, speaking on AKA’s killing, AFRIMA’s Country Director, South Africa, Lekunutu Seboko, said the government of the country must back up its promises and assurances with concrete action by solving the murder case in good time. He believes bringing the perpetrators of the heinous crime to book will deepen the trust and belief in a better future for not only the music stars in the country but all South Africans, where they can feel safe and secure in their homes and communities.

“AKA’s sudden death is a deeply disturbing tragedy and development in South African music; the ghastly manner of his death has had international reverberations and our government must endeavour to bring his assailants to book to prove to the world that we indeed operate a system that uplifts justice and sanity.

“Undoubtedly, the African music landscape is diminished by his untimely death; but it is now the responsibility of South African authorities to ensure that justice prevails. We understand that some arrests have been made, but the process of bringing everyone connected to his death to book must be swift because justice delayed is justice denied,” he said.

AFRIMA also reacted to the sudden death of another South African rapper Costa Titch who died in March while performing on stage.

Dada said the invaluable contributions of Costa Stitch, whose real name was Constantinos Tsobanoglou, and AKA to Africa’s creative and music ecosystem would be sorely missed.

He added that African music was yet to come to terms with the sudden demise of the two great artists, describing them as true musical giants whose incredible songs and voices touched countless lives.

He added that AKA set the bar high for South African hip-hop just as Costa Titch took it up a notch and the two superstars collectively and collaboratively projected African music and culture on the world stage with many songs they did together.

He added that the two music icons were prominent figures in the AFRIMA community, recalling that AKA was a winner while Costa Titch won multiple nominations.

Dada said: “The deaths of AKA and Costa Titch will continue to cause significant reverberations across the African music fraternity because their contributions to the art were simply magical. Their music, messages, and successes gave hope to young Africans mired in poverty, violence, and uncertainty. Their works did not only elevate the hip-hop genre to the mainstream of South African music but impacted the global music audience in a manner that deepened the acceptance of African music and culture on a large scale.

“Their losses are personal to us in AFRIMA because they have been part of our journey. We recall that AKA won the Best African Collaboration award in the 2015 edition of AFRIMA for his effort on ‘All Eyes on Me’ which features Burna Boy, Da LES and others, while Costa Titch got a historic six nominations in the recently held 2022 edition. The greatness of their crafts is still being acknowledged even in their graves.

“We are still sombre and sad about their sudden departures. They inspired the whole of our continent; full of faith, courage, and strength, they have left a huge void in the music industry and their invaluable contributions to the African music ecosystem would be missed forever.”

As directed by Jude Idada , starring Daniel Etim Effiong, Gina Castel, Beverly Naya, Zainab Balogun, Kate Henshaw, Ijeoma Grace Agu, Lucy Ameh, Enyinna Nwigwe, Shawn Faqua, Bucci Franklin.

The movie Kofa is titled in Hausa, one of the indigenous languages of Nigeria meaning Door.

A blockbuster tragicomedy, a crime movie with a twist in storyline. You would never see it coming. The movie started with 8 individuals who were entirely clueless about where they were and have no memories of who they were, each in the room was taken away at gunpoint and it becomes a struggle for the rest of the group to find an escape, at the same time trying to bring back there memory of who they were. Each remembering someone else’s memory and telling the other their memory they remembered not knowing that they were reinforced to think that way. They are each a character of a science project and that’s not even the real them they remembered.

This amazing movie further portrays the revolutionary movement of the “bring back our girls”, military and the heroic deeds of fearless female and male military spies who laid down their lives to search for these missing school girls which a good number of the girls were found alive and the military spies missing in action and military spies who died in action.

The movie promotes the beauty of Lagos showing places like Ikoyi{old money Lagos}Victoria Island {new money Lagos}, Isale Eko, Marina Lagos Island, Ajegunle, Apapa, and Lekki.

Furthermore, amidst the struggle of the 8, Wale(Daniel Etim-Affiong) who was the annoying one of the 8 effortlessly entertained the audience with endless laughter, an example is when he was shot in the thigh and the bullet was removed by Nosa(Enyinna Nwigwe)the doctor among the 8, there was no way to stop the blood, the ladies were asked to take their bra off because they were in just bra and panties(they ripped them naked before they were abducted).

Wale was after the sight of breasts which he did see, making viewers wonder what is the most important thing to him at the moment.

Also saw for a long-lasting minute, Tosin(Gina Castel) the supporting actress relentlessly in just her panties and no bra on fought a macho man(Udoka Oyeka) who is one of the captives and she ended up breaking his neck just in panties and no bra on. It’s a must watch. You should see it.

At the private screening of the Movie KOFA that took place at Filmhouse IMAX lekki, 3rd of May 2023, where the casts and crew and a selected Journalists and critics had the privilege of seeing the movie.

SOCIETY REPORTERS had a chat with the lead act, Daniel Etim Effiong who played the role of Wale…. Excerpt…….

What would you regard as your major challenges in the Movie KOFA ?

One of my major challenge in the movie was having to act the majority of the movie in my underwear was something I have never done before and put me in the mind frame of focusing on acting and losing the thought that you are in underwear with your colleagues that you have never seen like that before and the second is jude style of directing, having to be in a story that is out of the box and taking the character to any length I want to take the character to was very fresh, different and challenging for me.

How would you justify your thinking out of the box in acting what brought out the best of you and what you have been used to before?

It was just fresh for me and of course it was a message to creativity, it was uncomfortable, but it was all fresh and the outcome we were all happy

In the nearest future, would you like to work with Jude ?

Ofcourse, Jude is like a brother to me and if your senior brother calls you to come and do something you have to answer and aside that jude sees the world fresh and different and anytime he writes,you would never see his storyline coming.

How do you prepare your mind when you are about to go on a movie set

I read the script and I create the character I’m playing in my mind using my experiences and the way I think combined.

Do you have a watchword that motivates you ?

I have a lot of them but one of my favorite ones is as long as it is a new day,it’s a new opportunity,every morning you have a new opportunity to do it better,to do it differently,to go for your goals.

The movie Kofa won the best film award Africa International film festival(AFRIFF),Best Actor(Daniel Etim-Effiong)and best screenplay Jude Idada.

Daniel Etim-Effiong was nominated for Best Actor in a drama series at AMVCA and Gina Castel nominated as best supporting actress in a drama series(AMVCA)