Headies threatens to disqualify Portable over threat to co-nominees

Fast rising Nigerian singer, Habeeb Okikiola, popularly known as Portable might be disqualified by The Headies over his death threat to co-nominees of its 2022 edition.

The award’s organisers made this known in a statement broadcast via HipTV, its satellite TV channel, on Friday.

Portable was nominated to contest in the ‘Rookie of the Year’ and ‘Best Street-Hop Artiste’ categories, when The Headies unveiled the nominees for its 2022 edition on Tuesday.

The singer is expected to compete with Av, Fave, Magixx, and Ugoccie in the ‘Rookie of the Year’ category.

For the second category, he is pitted against Bella Shmurda, Mohbad, Naira Marley, and Goya Menor among others.

But in a video on Wednesday, Portable, while claiming other nominees are no match for him, threatened to kill anyone who wins any of the categories in his place.

The organisers, in its public announcement, said it might be forced to disqualify the singer if he fails to retract his statement and issue an apology on his social media pages.

“We have notified the Nigeria police of Mr. Okokiola’s actions to fellow nominees. Also, demand for the immediate retraction of the video as well as a written apology to nominees in both categories and to The Headies has been made.

“Should Mr. Okikiola fail to meet our demands, we will not only disqualify him from participating in The Headies but also enforce the instrumentality of the law.

“The general public are hereby implored to disregard the video and stop the dissemination of the same in the public space,” The Headies noted.