Chief Executive Officer of Lynx Entertainment, Richie Mensah, has explained the sudden removal of Kidi’s name from the list of nominees for this year’s Headies in Nigeria.

The Ghanaian artiste had been nominated in the ‘Rookie of the Year’ category together with Nigerian artistes Air Boy, Teni, Junior Boy and Peruzzi.

‘Rookie of the Year’ award at the Headies, which is organized by the Hip Hop World Magazine, is presented to a young emerging Nigerian act who has performed creditably well in the year under review (July 2016 - December 2017)

Kidi, a Ghanaian, found his way into that category solely designed for Nigerian artistes with little protest from the public.

Richie Mensah, in a phone interview with Naa Ashorkor on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z on Saturday, explained why it took a while for the organisers to notice the mistake and subsequently took Kidi out of the category.

‘’They told us that they made a mistake because ‘Odo’ had hit so much in Nigeria that when they were putting together the songs, they assumed Kidi was a Nigerian,’ he said.

‘So they added him to a nomination which is meant for only Nigerians. When they realized that he was a Ghanaian they had to take his name out,’ he continued.

According to the CEO of Lynx Entertainment, the oversight is a great sign that Kidi’s ‘Odo’ song had dominated the Nigerian market to a point where organizers thought he was even a Nigerian.

Rapper Sarkodie was also nominated in the ‘African Artiste of the Year’ for the Headies.

The SarkCess Music boss will face competition from Casper Nyovest, Nasty C, Sauti Sol and Vanessa MDee.

Headies are honours established in 2006 by the Hip Hop World Magazine of Nigeria to recognize outstanding achievement in the Nigerian music industry.

The 2018 Headies is slated for May 5, 2018.