Nigerian Idol: AJ, Tony, Others Return

As the Nigerian Idol music competition continues to gather momentum, the franchise  owners, Optima Media Group, have promised viewers that the fun will continue to the  last stage of the competition.

In the words of Rotimi Pedro, Managing Director of the outfit, “we have put a lot in  place to make sure that viewers have fun watching this show, and from the feedback  we get through votes, comments, tweets and emails, it’s easy to see that Nigerians  all over the world are in love with the show.”

Last week, the judges made public their displeasure on how viewers had voted. “I  think there are a number of talents that the audience disregarded,” Audu Maikori  said during the last eviction show where Alex and Onyeka emerged with the highest  votes.

But yesterday, six contestants- Immaculate, AJ, Tonii, Chito, Amadi and Rachael  faced the judges for a second chance to be on the show.  There were no performance,  no renditions. Thejudges deliberated for a few minutes, and selected the contestants  they would love to bring back into the competition.

“It’s a tough decision to make. All six contestants are talented, so sad we have to  pick one each,” Jeffery Daniel says before selecting AJ whose eviction two weeks  back generated a lot of controversies.

Daniel obviously had three favorites out of the bunch- Immaculate, Amadi and AJ, but  for ardent followers of the music reality show, it wasn’t entirely a surprise to see  him pick the 23-year-old undergraduate of the University of Calabar.

Before she was evicted on 6 January 6, 2011.AJ dedicated two of her renditions to  Jeffery Daniel. During her audition in Calabar, she sang with a guitar and devoted  the song to Jeffery.

“He will be my sweet love today,” she said to Misi back stage minutes before her  last performance.”