By Ayo Onikoyi

Winny Ezeme has been crowned the winner of the maiden edition of the gospel singing competition, Gospel Icons Africa (GIA).

Ezeme goes home with a cash prize of ₦10m, a brand new car, and a 2-year recording deal with M&E Music Company among other goodies.

Speaking at the grand ceremony, the winner, who hails from Enugu State, described the competition as an incredible experience.

“I feel truly excited and overwhelmed because I count it as a privilege and an honour to be crowned the winner of Gospel Icons Africa season one,” she enthused.

“It has been an incredible journey because, as a contestant, I met a lot of other talented people, so it was quite a competitive journey. But for me to have emerged as the winner, I definitely count it as a blessing.”

Ezeme expressed her deepest appreciation to the organisers of GIA for creating a platform for youths to raise kingdom stars and talents.

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Esther Oladeji, MD/CEO of Gospel Icons Africa, said the platform was God-inspired for Gospel ambassadors with a passion for music to amplify their message throughout Africa.

“We discovered that this transformational platform is needed to inspire Christian youths to stay true to God by embracing gospel music and discourage them from venturing into the secular music industry. I’m so grateful to God that since we started season one of Gospel Icons Africa, today, we were able to fulfil our promises against all odds,” she said.

Continuing, the CEO said, “Aside from that, because we discovered many talents during the competition, out of the top ten contestants that we have, we have other talents that we are going to mentor and assist. We observe that if they don’t attend this program, they might have gone into the world to join the bad gang but we are grateful that we came up with this kind of life-changing platform.”

Oladeji stressed that she believed the winner has a brighter future in the gospel music arena as she urged her to keep spreading the message of hope, faith, and love to uplift and inspire audiences worldwide.