T.B. Joshua, the Nigerian cleric who is especially popular across Southern Africa, has been honoured as the ‘man of the decade’ for a prominent ethnic group in Nigeria.
Joshua received the commendation from IrohinOdua, a pan-Yoruba news outlet which caters for the over 35 million Yoruba people.
Additionally, outspoken Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka was named ‘Yoruba man of the year’ and prominent Nigerian statesman and social democrat Chief Obafemi Awolowo was posthumously awarded ‘Yoruba man of the century’.
According to the statement, the three personalities were selected after a careful consideration of the role each had played in the annals of modern Yoruba history.
Eulogising T.B. Joshua’s contribution to tourism in Nigeria, the Editorial Board Chairman for IrohinOdua, Prince Adeleke said, “The ancestral origin of The Synagogue has transformed from a dingy wasteland into a local Disneyland drawing, in one year, millions of visitors to Nigeria from Africa, Europe, the Middle East and America.”
Tragic evidence of Joshua’s potential to attract foreigners to Nigeria came on September 12th 2014 when a guesthouse in his premises collapsed, resulting in the deaths of 115 people. Government sources state that six out of every ten visitors to Nigeria are bound for Joshua’s church, a figure that has shown no signs of waning despite the tragic incident last year.
Adeleke continued, “We see in his handiwork, a quiet revolution to transform the world in ways unimaginable. Since we blew the whistle for nomination, we have received incalculable, baffling testimonials from royals and ordinary street folks leading us to a hidden light in a dark, malicious world where the poor remain the dreg and the end butt of repression, neglect and perpetual want.”
The popularity of Christian television station Emmanuel TV is increasingly evident in predominantly Christian nations such as Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa where T.B. Joshua is a household name.
Makweembo Mwanasa wrote from Lusaka, Zambia