Nigeria’s foremost gospel music
producer, Wole Oni, is in the mood for celebration. Last week Friday, friends,
fans and family thronged his office/studio in Surulere, Lagos, to celebrate
with the music maker as he celebrated his latest awards namely a Lifetime
Crystal Award and his appointment as a Youth UN Ambassador for Peace.
“I’m excited today and grateful
to God for his numerous blessings upon my life. Words cannot express my joy. We
are here to celebrate my latest additions, my UN Youth Peace ambassadorship and
my Crystal Lifetime Achievement Award, which I won penultimate Sunday.
“I am most excited about the UN
Youth Peace Ambassadorship because I have been looking for such a platform to
preach the gospel of peace. Before now I have been involved in peace
initiatives at the grass roots but this is a whole new ball game.”
So how is he going to use his
UN platform to promote peace? “One of the things I am going to work on now as a
peace ambassador is to use my specialty to dish out as much good music as I can
because music is very dynamic and universal whether you’re are Hausa Yoruba or
Igbo, you can understand the language of music. Music is a powerful tool and
without peace there cannot be no development so we need to sensitise people and
let them know that they can be what they want to be.
“With peace you can change the
world. We need to create songs that can change people’s attitudes. You can make
change in your world. It’s all about those extra ordinary things that ordinary
people do.”
Commenting on how the awards
have impacted him Oni added: “When you have an award, it gives you joy and
inspires more creativity in you. I am happy that having done this for a while,
the world is getting to hear about what I do and that means that I am impacting
and motivating young people and giving them optimism that hard work pays.”
Oni, in a career spanning over
20 years has won numerous awards. Some of his hits include Igwe by Midnight
Crew, Ko Si Oba Bi Re by Folake Umosen and Onyeka Onwenu’s Goodluck Jonathan’s
Peace Initiative song to mention a few.
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