Donna Adja Clinches Three Wins at Gbedu Awards, Set to Shoot “No Forks Trap” Video

California–based Nigerian singer, songwriter, and performer Donna Adja has recorded a major career milestone after winning three awards at the Gbedu Awards 2025, affirming her position as one of the most versatile and performance-driven female artists in today’s Afrobeats landscape.

The Gbedu Awards, organised by MorrisShinehead Ent. Worldwide in partnership with Labour Research and Training Services, and founded by executive producer MC Morris, are a growing platform dedicated to celebrating excellence across music, performance, media, and entertainment. The 2025 edition of the awards held on December 28, 2025, brought together artists, industry figures, and cultural stakeholders in a showcase of Nigerian and diaspora talent.

Although Donna Adja was unable to attend the main awards night due to prior commitments, she was officially presented with her awards on January 10, 2026, during a dedicated welcome and presentation event organised by the awards body in collaboration with UNILAG FM — reinforcing the legitimacy and recognition of her wins.

*A Triple Win That Reflects Depth and Range*

At the Gbedu Awards 2025, Donna Adja emerged victorious in the following categories:

1. Best Stage Act (Female)

2. Most Creative Female Artiste of the Year

3. Nigeria’s Best Female Artiste in the Diaspora

The three awards collectively highlight her commanding live presence, creative originality, and her growing influence as a Nigerian artist successfully navigating global stages.

*A Performer Forged on Live Stages*

Donna Adja’s journey into music began early, with church performances in Delta State shaping her vocal discipline and stage confidence from the age of 15. By 22, she had committed fully to music as a profession, collaborating as a featured vocalist with established Nigerian artists including Solid Star, Harrysong, Dezign, and others.

Her reputation as a live performer reached a defining phase when she formed and led a 14-piece live band, Daz Entertainment, which served as the in-house band at Sheraton Lagos Hotel. Performing up to five nights a week over several years, Donna built a reputation for consistency, stamina, and audience connection. During this period, she performed for two Nigerian presidents and delivered solo performances across the United Kingdom, Dubai, and Australia — credentials that strongly underpin her Best Stage Act (Female) win.

*Creative Identity Beyond the Stage*

Beyond performance, Donna Adja’s artistry has been marked by stylistic freedom and sonic range. Singles such as “Shut Up” and “Gaga” gained notable radio traction in Nigeria, while “I Like Your Body” surpassed one million views on YouTube, extending her reach beyond local markets.

Now operating under the professional representation of Arems Entertainment, which oversees her bookings, engagements, and industry relations, Donna has entered a more structured phase of her career — sharpening both her creative output and long-term positioning. This evolution was recognised with her win as Most Creative Female Artiste of the Year.

*A Strong Diaspora Presence*

Relocating to the United States did not dilute Donna’s artistic identity; instead, it expanded it. Her music continues to blend Afrobeats, Afropop, R&B, and soul, reflecting both her African roots and global environment. This balance has made her a visible voice for Nigerian music abroad, earning her the Nigeria’s Best Female Artiste in the Diaspora award — a recognition of cultural representation as much as musical impact.

*What’s Next*

Fresh off her triple win at the Gbedu Awards 2025, Donna Adja is maintaining momentum with plans to shoot the official music video for her latest trending single, “No Forks Trap,” next week. The record, part of her ongoing No Forks creative run, captures her street-leaning confidence and performance energy — elements that have become central to her brand.

With a growing catalogue, renewed industry structure, and visual rollouts aligned with her sound, Donna Adja’s Gbedu Awards sweep stands as more than celebration. It marks a clear signal of an artist stepping decisively into her most visible, focused, and impactful chapter yet.

Governing Through Hardship: How Tinubu’s Policies Targets the Poor.

By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by SaharaWeeklyNG.com 

“Economic reform without justice is no reform at all. In Nigeria, millions are paying the price of mismanaged policy, rising inequality and administrative recklessness. The Poor Under Siege: Tinubu’s Policy Failure.”

There are moments in a nation’s life when governance ceases to be measured by competence and begins to be measured by suffering. Nigeria has reached such a moment. Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, what was once marketed as “RENEWED HOPE” has mutated into structural hardship, widespread insecurity and the quiet erosion of dignity. Policies intended to stabilise the economy (subsidy removals, rising tariffs, new levies) have instead become instruments of pressure on ordinary citizens. The poor are no longer incidental victims; they are the frontline in a state-driven campaign of economic attrition. As W. E. B. Du Bois warned, “the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” In Nigeria, citizens are paying that higher price; not with chains, but with hunger, confusion and shrinking opportunity.

From the administration of Muhammadu Buhari’s lethargic governance to Tinubu’s frenetic improvisation, the APC era reads as a study in systemic failure. Buhari governed by inaction; Tinubu governs by motion. Both approaches, however different in style, have produced similar consequences: RISING INEQUALITY, POLICY INCOHERENCE and DWINDLING TRUST in PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. Announcements precede implementation; reforms arrive without preparation; consequences are dealt with only after citizens suffer. Confusion, in practice, has become a governing strategy.

Tinubu entered office branding himself a “MASTER STRATEGIST.” What has emerged is a politics of approximation: ALMOST stabilising the naira, ALMOST attracting foreign investment, ALMOST governing effectively. Each “ALMOST ” has hardened into policy orthodoxy, each delay reframed as courage and each failure recast as sacrifice. Though societies do not subsist on intention. Citizens cannot eat forecasts, commute on promises, or survive on speeches.

From Reform to Extraction. Where strategic reform was required, Nigerians encountered extraction. Rather than phased restructuring, the government unleashed a wave of taxes, levies, tariffs and fees that transformed survival itself into a fiscal offence. The removal of the fuel subsidy, for instance, immediately escalated transport costs, which cascaded into food inflation. Electricity tariffs rose sharply, while power supply remained inconsistent. Customs duties and exchange-rate volatility squeezed manufacturers, eroding local production capacity.

Even the informal sector (historically Nigeria’s economic buffer) was quickly incorporated into the tax net without credit access, social protection, or supportive infrastructure. Economist Joseph Stiglitz has consistently argued that reforms that withdraw protection before providing alternatives inevitably harm the poor. Nigeria’s trajectory confirms that principle in stark, human terms.

At the heart of this approach lies a profound ethical contradiction. The state expanded its revenue appetite while shrinking its social responsibility. Taxation ceased to operate as a social contract; it became punishment. Families, workers and small businesses bear the cost, while politically connected elites navigate policies largely untouched. John Rawls, the philosopher of justice, reminds us that societies should evaluate policies based on their effect on the least advantaged. By that standard, Nigeria’s reforms are failing catastrophically.

Shock Therapy Without Cushion. The administration’s approach to fuel subsidy removal exemplifies this pattern. Implemented abruptly, it imposed pain without relief: no transport buffers, no food price stabilisation, no timely wage adjustments. This was not reform bravery, but it was shock therapy without diagnosis. Countries such as Brazil and Indonesia have shown that subsidy reforms succeed only when gradual, paired with targeted social safety nets. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has long argued that economic reform divorced from social protection is not reform at all; it is regression disguised as necessity.

Insecurity, Inflation and Policy Contradictions. Economic stress has been compounded by worsening insecurity. Farmers abandon fields due to violence and kidnapping, exacerbating food scarcity. Small traders are punished by currency volatility they neither caused nor understand. Exchange-rate fluctuations have transformed daily business operations into a gamble. Interventions frequently contradict each other: one day a policy promises relief, the next it imposes further cost. ACT FIRST, EXPLAIN LATER, APOLOGIZE NEVER and this has become standard practice.

The interaction of insecurity, inflation and policy incoherence creates a feedback loop. Violence limits production, driving up food prices. Inflation reduces purchasing power, increasing vulnerability to crime. Poverty deepens instability and instability deepens poverty. This is neither accidental nor temporary; it is the predictable outcome of fragmented governance.

Upward Redistribution, Downward Pressure. The human consequences are now visible in daily life. Parents ration meals. Graduates accept low-wage or precarious work for survival. Small businesses collapse under regulatory and tax pressure, while politically connected conglomerates thrive. Nigeria’s new system operates as a perverse redistribution mechanism: upward mobility for the elite, downward pressure for the majority. Poverty is no longer INCIDENTAL, but it has become STRUCTURAL.

Economist Thomas Piketty warns that when policy consistently favors capital over labour, inequality stops being accidental and becomes engineered. Nigeria has crossed that threshold. Economic reform without justice is no reform at all; it is a mechanism for reinforcing power hierarchies.

A Crisis of Ethics, Not Capacity. This is not reform fatigue. It is moral exhaustion. Nigeria is governed as though society were an abstract spreadsheet rather than a living community. Grace Paley once observed that politicians often speak obsessively about the future to avoid responsibility for the present. Tinubu’s presidency embodies this tendency. Citizens are drowning in the present while being instructed to endure for a promised tomorrow indefinitely deferred.

Du Bois reminds us that systems collapse not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack justice. Tinubu’s administration is not failing for lack of technical capacity; it is failing due to a deficit of conscience.

Denouement: Governance Is Not Performance. When governments wage economic war, the poor inevitably become the frontline casualties. Reform without justice is indistinguishable from cruelty. Policy without empathy corrodes legitimacy. Growth that excludes dignity is not progress.

Nigeria today is not suffering from a lack of ideas, but from a deficit of conscience. Governance has been reduced to performance, endurance to patriotism and suffering to proof of seriousness. But hunger is not a developmental strategy. Suffering is not a measure of progress. No nation can sustainably reform its economy by exhausting its citizens.

Legitimacy, once depleted, cannot be monetized. A state that asks its people to bleed indefinitely for an abstract future will ultimately find that endurance has limits. In Nigeria, the poor are not STATISTICS; they are SENTINELS of policy failure. A hungry nation cannot be governed on applause, nor can reform survive without justice.

WHEN FAITH BECOMES COMMERCE: HOW PENTECOSTAL EXCESS AND RELIGIOUS EXPLOITATION ARE DEEPENING POVERTY IN NIGERIA.

By George Omagbemi Sylvester

“From SPIRITUAL LIBERATION to ECONOMIC ENSLAVEMENT.”

There was a time when Christianity in Nigeria represented hope, moral restraint, communal responsibility and resistance against injustice. Today, however, a disturbing transformation has taken place. What was once a faith rooted in service has, in many quarters, degenerated into an industry of extraction, the one that feeds on poverty, desperation and blind belief. Nowhere is this more visible than in the excesses of modern Pentecostalism.

Nigeria, Africa’s most religious nation by self-identification, is also one of its poorest. This contradiction is neither accidental nor mysterious. According to the World Bank, over 63% of Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty, yet Nigeria simultaneously hosts some of the wealthiest pastors in the world, many with private jets, sprawling estates and luxury motorcades. This is not merely irony; it is indictment.

From Pulpit to Marketplace. The Nigerian Pentecostal movement, which expanded rapidly from the 1980s amid economic decline and military dictatorship, initially offered emotional relief and spiritual reassurance. Over time, however, FAITH was MONETIZED. Prosperity theology (popularly summarized as “SOW A SEED TO REAP A HARVEST”) became the dominant message. Poverty was reframed not as a structural failure but as a personal spiritual deficiency.

The late German sociologist Max Weber warned that when religion becomes fused with material reward, it risks turning faith into an economic transaction rather than a moral compass. In Nigeria today, this warning has materialized. Congregants are told to ignore hunger, unemployment and failing healthcare systems while being encouraged to give tithes, offerings, “first fruits” and special donations to often at great personal cost/or encounter with the “MAN OF GOD.”.

The result is tragic: families go hungry while pastors grow richer.

Commercialized Miracles and the Sale of Hope. Perhaps the most grotesque feature of this transformation is the commercialization of spiritual symbols. HOLY WATER, ANOINTING OIL, STICKERS, CALENDARS, HANDKERCHIEFS, SALT, SUGAR (even so-called “MANTLES”) are sold in the name of Jesus Christ, who famously overturned the tables of money changers in the temple.

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once observed that “religion can become the most cruel illusion when it is detached from justice.” In Nigeria, miracles are marketed as commodities, while critical thinking is discouraged. Fake prophecies flourish, fear is weaponized and skepticism is framed as rebellion against God.

This is not faith. It is psychological manipulation.

Pastors as Political Power Brokers. Equally troubling is the deep entanglement between Pentecostal leaders and political elites. Many pastors now serve as spiritual LEGITIMIZERS of CORRUPTION, offering prayers instead of accountability and prophecies instead of policies. Politicians accused of looting public funds are celebrated on altars, where stolen wealth is rebranded as divine favor.

Political scientist Claude Ake once noted that African elites often rely on ideology (religious or ethnic) to mask material exploitation. In Nigeria, the church has become one of the most effective tools for this purpose. Instead of mobilizing citizens to demand good governance, many churches preach submission, patience and supernatural waiting.

The message is clear: PRAY, DO NOT PROTEST.

Church Proliferation, Poverty Expansion. Nigeria has one of the highest concentrations of churches per square kilometer in the world. In many streets, especially in urban centers, eight to eleven churches may operate within a single neighborhood. Yet the same communities suffer worsening unemployment, crime and infrastructural decay with NO electricity.

This disproves the simplistic claim that more churches automatically produce moral or economic progress. As economist Amartya Sen argues, development requires institutions that expand human freedom and not those that normalize deprivation while promising rewards in the afterlife.

Religion that discourages social responsibility, civic engagement and critical inquiry ultimately weakens society.

The Psychological Cost of Gullibility. The greatest damage done by exploitative religion is not financial; it is mental. Millions of Nigerians have been conditioned to externalize responsibility for systemic failure. Instead of DEMANDING HEALTHCARE, they pray for HEALING. Instead of ORGANIZING for JOBS, they FAST for BREAKTHROUGHS. Instead of CONFRONTING INJUSTICE, they wait for DIVINE INTERVENTION.

This learned helplessness sustains poverty.

As philosopher Karl Marx famously argued (not to mock faith, but to diagnose suffering) “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the opium of the people.” In Nigeria, religion has increasingly become a sedative that numbs political consciousness while enriching a powerful clerical elite.

Christianity Was Never Meant to Dehumanize. It is important to state clearly: this CRITIQUE is not an ATTACK on CHRISTIANITY. It is a DEFENSE of it.

Jesus Christ preached humility, service, justice and sacrifice. He lived among the poor and condemned religious leaders who exploited them. The EARLY CHURCH SHARED RESOURCES AND CARED FOR WIDOWS, ORPHANS AND THE SICK. Today’s celebrity pastors, guarded by armed security and insulated by luxury, resemble corporate executives more than servants of God.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian executed by the Nazis, warned: “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church.” Nigeria today is drowning in cheap grace and abundant promises with no moral cost to those in power.

Where Are We Headed? If this trajectory continues, Nigeria risks producing generations conditioned to believe that salvation lies not in education, innovation, accountability or civic duty, but in prophetic declarations and financial offerings to religious strongmen.

NO SOCIETY CAN DEVELOP THIS WAY.

Faith must return to its moral foundation. Churches must be places of conscience NOT consumption. Pastors must be servants, not gods. And citizens must reclaim their agency from politicians and from pulpits alike.

A Final Reflection.

Nigeria is not poor because God abandoned it. Nigeria is poor because responsibility has been outsourced to heaven while earthly injustice thrives unchecked. Until religion stops anesthetizing the masses and starts empowering them, the cycle of poverty will persist.

True faith should awaken the mind, strengthen the conscience and demand justice not silence hunger with promises of miracles.

The question is no longer “WHERE IS GOD?”

The real question is: WHEN WILL NIGERIANS/AFRICANS STOP ALLOWING GOD’S NAME TO BE USED AGAINST THEM?