Jonathan wins 2025 Sunhak Peace Prize

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has been nominated as the winner of the 2025 Founders Sunhak Peace Award.

Mr Ikechukwu Eze, Special Adviser to Jonathan disclosed this in a statement on Monday in Abuja.

Eze said that the award would be presented to the former president by Sunhak Peace Prize Foundation in Seoul, South Korea on April 11.

According to him, Jonathan becomes the third person and the first African leader to win this category of the award, after former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon and Prime Minister of Cambodia, Mr Hun Sen.

Eze said that this year’s award ceremony, the sixth in the series, would take place in Seoul on April 11, where Jonathan and other laureates would be decorated.

He quoted the Sunhak Peace Prize Committee as stating that the honour was in recognition of Jonathan’s consistent mediations and pro-democracy activities to bring peace to the African continent.

This, according to him, is especially through the instrumentality of the various associations he chairs, including Goodluck Jonathan Foundation (GJF), West African Elders’ Forum (WAEF) and International Summit Council for Peace (ISCP).

NAN reports that the Founders Sunhak Peace Award and the Sunhak Peace Prize are two categories of awards presented biennially by the committee to individuals and organisations acknowledged as worthy contributors to world peace and human development.

Prominent past winners of the second category, which is the Sunhak Peace Prize, included former Senegalese President Macky Sall and President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina.

Others were Dame Sarah Gilbert, Co-developer of Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine as well as GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

Eze said that Jonathan would be receiving his award alongside three individuals who were recently announced by José Barroso, the Sunhak Peace Prize Committee Chair and former President of the European Commission, as winners in the other category.

They include Patrick Awuah Jr., Founder and President of Ashesi University in Ghana, Hugh Evans, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Global Citizen and Wanjira Mathai, Regional Director for   Africa at the World Resources Institute.

Eze also quoted the founder of the prize, Dr Hak Ja Han Moon, as stating in her pre-event address that the lives of the laureates had been an inspiring testament to how peace could be realised through concrete actions and cultural transformation.

“Over the past decade, the Sunhak Peace Prize has identified and honoured individuals.

“Individuals who have dedicated themselves to addressing urgent global challenges based on its three core values: respect for human rights, reconciliation of conflicts and ecological conservation,’’ Moon said.

Established in 2015, the biennial Sunhak Peace Prize honours individuals and organisations that have shown extraordinary services to global peace and well-being in any of the three areas.

The areas are sustainable human development, conflict resolution or ecological conservation. (NAN)