After several weeks of campaigning on radio, Television, newspapers, websites and other mediums, for a gospel artiste to win the topmost award the “Artiste of the Year”, for the first time in the history of GMA at this year’s Ghana Music Awards, the awards have swerved all lovers of Ghanaian gospel music and the musicians themselves who went to the awards night with high hopes to go home with the ultimate award.

To the shock of the two gospel musicians in that category: Cecilia Marfo and No Tribe, Nima based hiplife trio VIP (Vision In Progress) won the “Artistes of the Year” also beating their colleague circular musicians: Samini, Kwabena Kwabena and Castro at the glamorous Ghana Music Awards night held on Saturday April 9, in the Dome at the Accra International Conference Center.

Gospel group No-Tribe said on stage when they won their only award on the night for “Best Gospel Artiste”, that they knew they were going to win more awards so they were still counting, as part of their acceptance speech which indicates that they were expecting to win more than one award which obviously included the “Artiste of the Year”.

Prior to the awards, the group went round rooting for votes and even made an artwork with the short code and all their five nominations: Artiste of the Year, Gospel Song of the Year, Gospel Artiste of the Year, Album of the Year and Most Popular Song of the Year. They placed the artwork in entertainment newspapers, websites and social networks like Facebook, Twitter and others all in the bid to rake for votes.

On the other hand, gospel singer Cecilia Marfo who was the people’s favorite for the topmost award with her very popular song “Afunumuba”, spent sleepless nights fasting and praying for divine intervention. A close source to the singer hinted Peacefmonline.com that she went into hiding on the mountains few days to the awards to pray but it seem all their efforts merited only one award each. When VIP was announced as the “Artiste of the Year” Peacefmonline.com observed disappointed on the faces both members of No Tribe and Cecilia Marfo.

However, the gospel musicians had a big victory on the night as gospel sensation Herty Borngreat beat all the circular artistes: Eazzy, Nana Boroo, Trigmatic, Jay Ghartey, Bless and Iwan to win the “Discovery of the Year” Award.

This is the second time a gospel musician has ever won the “Discovery of the Year” since the inception of Ghana Music Awards twelve years ago. At the end, four awards went to the gospel folks. No-Tribe won “Gospel Artiste of the Year”, Cecilia Marfo (Gospel Song of the Year), Herty Borngreat (Discovery of the Year) and Pastor Boamah won “Song Writer of the Year”.