Mary Nnah
The much anticipated Loveworld International Music and Arts (LIMA) Awards 2019, which took place Sunday night at the Loveworld Convocation Arena (LCA) in Lagos will go down in history as the biggest gospel music and arts awards globally.
It went beyond expectations in every ramification from organisation to attendance to crowd control. In fact, the entire ambience reflected a well detailed and perfectly executed ceremony, one that observers attested to have not seen such of its kind in this part of the world.
Attendees were treated to ethereal songs from great talents like Testimony Jaga, Joe Praize, Loveworld UK Band, Sinach, Samsong, Eben, Frank Edward. Many other talented gospel music artists gave awesome renditions and performances that literally set the huge auditorium on fire and would definitely be talked about for weeks and years to come.
Aside from logistics, security, crowd response, lightening and sound systems that were all top notch, another evidence that manifests the excellence of which the Loveworld nation is well known is the award presentations which were accompanied by some of the most innovative high-tech stage ambience that compares the Grammy’s with songs that were as hot and sizzling as they were spiritually edifying.
It was indeed a very amazing and highly electrifying event with the added impetus of highly encouraging cash backed prizes. The event which was televised live on national networks and different international cable channel is said to have attracted a viewership of over 250 million people across 100 countries of the world. This is aside those who watched it via social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube among other channels.
Speaking on the importance of the LIMAA and the efforts of Loveworld nation to revolutionalise gospel music around the world, the Media Director of the Ministry Pastor Tony Ikeokwu said that “we believe that if you give people opportunities to express themselves, they will excel and because we feel we have limited opportunities available to our artists to be celebrated outside as gospel music ministers, so we instituted the LIMA Awards to recognise and honour our own.”
LIMAA was created in 2016 by the President of The Loveworld Inc. (Christ Embassy), Rev. Dr. Chris Oyakhilome as a platform to recognise the efforts and talents of gospel music ministers in the Ministry and encourage them by cash-backed rewards to enable them do more and also compete internationally.
With heightened expectations, the Song of the Year went to Sinach with a cash-backed prize of $100,000 while the Artist of the Year went to Testimony Jaga, who couldn’t hold back his joy. Jaga who spoke in tears as he narrated his life tales on the street before he found salvation in Jesus Christ and comfort in the Loveworld nation, got cash backed prize of $25,000.
