“I do not receive honor from men.” (John 5:41).
The most celebrated and eminent son of Nigeria and Africa as a whole, Prophet T.B. Joshua of The Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) has been honoured as the ‘Yoruba Man of the Year’ 2015.
Out of the 500 nominees screened by the Planning Committee of the Association, the ‘Egbe Omo Oodua Parapo’, a coalition of 35 Pan-Yoruba groups drawn from different parts of the world, bestowed the honour on Prophet T.B. Joshua.
“We give this award to Pastor Joshua out of over 500 nominees screened by the Planning Committee of the Association,” Dr Akinwale Adewunmi, the Chairman of the award committee said in a statement following the group’s annual conference in United States.
He noted that, the founder of SCOAN has added “honour and admiration to the Yoruba nation”, especially through his diverse humanitarian and altruistic activities.
“We are proud that you are a Yoruba man with a global image in the annals of charity,” he stated, noting that Joshua’s charitable projects span 45 countries and aid ‘millions’ on a yearly basis, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity.
Acknowledging the Prophet’s rise to prominence from a humble home, the prominent group said, “Pastor Joshua started as a poor boy, he had no access to education neither did he enjoy any outstanding benefit from his society, yet he built himself. He educated himself and today stands out like a Professor in the greater university of life and living.”
The statement also quoted Joshua’s contribution to improving Nigeria’s image abroad, saying “Across the world, many ask travellers from Nigeria: ‘Oh, you are From Pastor T.B. Joshua’s country?’ adding that the SCOAN was arguably the biggest tourist attraction in the ‘South West’, and that many foreigners would never have visited Nigeria if not for Joshua’s church.
Eulogising the Cleric, the group said, “We are proud that this generation has produced a Yoruba man, a Nigerian and an African that stands this tall,” the statement concluded.
Readers can recollect that on 20th February this year, T.B. Joshua was named “Yoruba Man of the Decade” and then going a step further to unseat the outspoken Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka to become the current “Yoruba Man of the Year”.
The Yoruba people are an ethnic group of South-western and North-central Nigeria as well as Southern and Central Benin in West Africa.
They constitute over 40 million people in total; the majority of this population is from Nigeria and make up 21% of its population, according to the CIA World Factbook, making them one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa.
GHANAWEB
15 December, 2015