Ghana’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Mrs Barbara Oteng-Gyasi, has revealed that her ministry will engage Ghanaian reggae dancehall artistes Livingstone Etse Satekla, known in showbiz as Stonebwoy; and his archrival Charles Nii Armah Mensah Jr., also known as Shatta Wale, to end the feud between them to prevent a deadly escalation.

“We are going to engage them together with MUSIGA to ensure that we resolve whatever underlying issue that is there so that we don’t have an escalation going forward into the future,” Mrs Oteng-Gyasi told Benjamin Akakpo on ClassFM’s 91.3FM on Monday, 20 May 2019.

Her comments were in reaction to the gun-related incident that took place at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs) held on Saturday, 18 May 2019.

The 20th edition of the VGMAs nearly turned bloody when fans of Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale engaged in near-fisticuffs over an award.

The confusion happened when Stonebwoy was announced as the Reggae Dancehall Artiste of the Year.

Shatta Wale and his fans approached the podium to ostensibly 'congratulate' Stonebwoy, but events turned chaotic resulting in a lot of pushing and shoving – a situation that prompted Stonebwoy to pull out his pistol.

The security officers at the event pepper-sprayed the stage in an attempt to prevent a full-blown fight.

“On the part of the ministry and the organisers, on hindsight, we should have engaged the two artistes prior to the event having witnessed what was going on in social media”, the minister said in her interview with Benjamin Akakpo.

She subsequently called on the fans of the two musicians to stop the social media war as that fuels the rivalry between the two artistes.