Was Robert Alai Right When He Blasted Xtian Dela Over Buying Social Media Followers? These Are The Reasons That Make Us Believe Alai’s Every Word

It is emerging, with time, that blogger Robert Alai is a man that everyone should take seriously. Despite the political differences playing among many Kenyans, and particularly in Alai’s posts and utterances, the blogger is gradually gaining fame among his folks and foes in equal measure, thanks to his reputation as one of the most credible and timely source of very sensitive information.

Late last year, the controversial blogger blasted social media guru Xtian Dela by alleging that he was buying followers on twitter and other social media platforms to gain fame.

This came as a result of the social media guru garnering a massive following on twitter, suddenly and unexpectedly; a following that is difficult to garner over a short period of time.

A row blew between Dela and Alai, with many finding themselves divided over who to stand by or with.

As they say, time heals everything. The saga would later cool down and eventually fade out as more pertinent issues took centre-stage. After all who was interested in Xtian Dela having a million followers on twitter and instagram!

For those who don’t know the genesis of this saga, Xtian Dela has over 406,000 followers on twitter and 21,100 followers on instagram. That is no mean figure my friend.

This clearly explains why Alai took issue with the social media presence and recognition Xtian Dela has. After all, he was justified to do so.

There are prominent, eminent and famous people around the globe with fewer followers than Dela. Again, in Kenya, for one to get such a following you need to be a bit extra ordinary. But for Dela, this looked so easy within a span of days or weeks.

Many dismissed Alai then, but it is now coming to pass that the blogger was right.

Xtain Dela was nominated for the recently concluded Social Media Awards in Africa, a ceremony that was held in Lagos, Nigeria, over the weekend.

Fortunately, his social media presence landed him nominations to three different categories in awards. That was a record Xtian Dela set jointly with another Nigerian nominee who also got to the three slots.

However, as fate is, Xtian Dela who had travelled all the way to Lagos, and we must congratulate him for that, came back empty handed. He failed to win an award despite the nomination into three different categories.

This surprised many of us who had big expectations for the son of the land. Even the SMAA blog is surprised why Xtian Dela with his Nigerian counterpart could not land even a single award.

The blog says, “On another surprising note, three of the continent’s favourites earlier tipped to clinch awards, Xtian Dela from Kenya and Japheth Omojuwa from Nigeria; both with 3 nominations and Vodafone Ghana with 2 nominations across different awards did not emerge winners in all nominations despite overwhelming support from fans and followers.”

The main line here is: “…3 nominations…across different awards did not emerge winners in all nominations despite overwhelming support from fans and followers.”

How now? Why? If someone has an overwhelming support from fans and followers, and he is tipped as the favourite for the award, why is it that they cannot win the award?

Did the judges at the SMA awards discover foul play in the voting process? Why did they not award Xtian Dela considering he has a massive following on twitter and instagram and can command a wonderful rallying behind him? What did the judges look at to deny Xtain Dela an award?

Voting for the nominees was through e-mail. Was Xtian Dela nominated genuinely for the award or he coached his voters? Did he gather mails from friends and voted for himself? Is Robert Alai’s allegation that Xtian Dela buys followers to gain fame coming out as nothing but the truth? Don’t you think it is time we started taking Robert Alai seriously?

Did Xtain Dela deserve to return from Nigeria empty-handed considering that he has his own legion on social media? Is he paying for buying followers to gain cheap publicity? Is he dancing to the tune of Alai’s allegations? Well, these and many more are some of the questions lingering amidst us even as we are glad he atleast made it to West Africa to represent Kenya.