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NAIROBI. – TikTok, a short video-sharing platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, awarded last weekend TikTok creators from across sub-Saharan Africa for the immense talent and creativity they brought to the platform in the past year.

TikTok’s inaugural award ceremony took place in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, following a highly competitive eight-day-long public voting process on the app across Southern, West, and East Africa.

Boniswa Sidwaba, TikTok’s Content Programing Lead, Sub-Saharan Africa, said that the award ceremony is TikTok’s way of recognizing storytellers, creativity, and the positive impact all creators bring to the TikTok community.

“We are thrilled to be celebrating our creators who have been a driving force behind some of the exciting trends for 2022. With these inaugural awards, TikTok aims to give creators in sub-Saharan Africa the recognition they deserve and to encourage them to tell the African story while spreading joy at all times,” Sidwaba said.

According to TikTok, the awards were given to deserving creators will encourage Africans to tell more African stories. 

“The TopCreator2022 Awards are TikTok’s way of recognizing storytellers, creativity and the positive impact all creators bring to the TikTok community. 

“We are thrilled to be celebrating our creators who have been a driving force behind some of the exciting trends of 2022.

“With these inaugural awards, TikTok aims to give creators in Sub-Saharan Africa the recognition they deserve and to encourage them to tell the African story while spreading joy at all times”

The TikTok Top Creator 2022 Awards were the first to celebrate awesome creators on and off the platform.  They werelaunched last December during the release of its annual report of its 2022 trendsetters. 

It saw a total of 90 nominees from three regions namely; Southern Africa, West Africa and East Africa, with each region having 30 nominees. 

The awards categories were split based on the three regions. A winner and a runner-up were thus announced for each region of Southern Africa, West Africa, and East Africa. 

For South Africa, the creator identified as Pilot_onthe gram was the winner while Motho Wa Ernest emerged as the first runner up 

In West Africa, Ifeaoma Efioku emerged as the winner followed by Berby Picxy as the first runner up 

In East Africa, Natasha and Nita emerged the winner and first runner up respectively 

In Africa however, Dennis Ombachi and Charity Ekezie led as the overall winner and First runner up respectively.

Sidwaba revealed that the winner of the Top Creator 2022 Sub-Saharan Africa was Dennis Ombachi, popularly known as @theroamingchef from Kenya, while the runner-up was Charity Ekezie, popularly known as @charityekezie from Nigeria.  – Xinhua