Nigerians need to develop the habit of promoting and exporting their own products rather than importing both products and culture.
During a recent briefing to introduce and market the Erelu Yeye O’dua Cultural Renaissance Centre (E.Y.O centre), the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Ethos Life Force, Asiwaju Babatunde Sonupe lamented that Nigeria’s culture is fast moving into extinction “because we do not appreciate our own culture, tradition and language, among others.
Royal Ethos Life Force markets and promotes African culture, tradition, religion and everything African.
Sonupe said that the habit of Nigerians and Africans to import culture, tradition and goods have negatively affected their culture. He therefore called on Nigerians and Africans to see themselves as ambassadors of their country and continent through the positive showcase and exportation of their language, culture, tradition and general way of life.
Sonupe, who also is the main consultant on E.Y.O centre, said the initiative would create jobs and engage the average Nigerian youth positively, while also teaching them all they required to know about their culture, tradition, language, religion, food, fashion and business. This, he noted, would go a long way in changing the mindset of Nigerian youths.
He called on government and corporate bodies to join hands with the Yeye O’dua Foundation to promote and export the Nigerian and African culture.
Foremost custodian of the Lagos and Yoruba culture, Yeye O’dua Abiola Dosunmu Fernandez emphasised the need for Nigerians to become propagators of their own story and positive way of life.
Erelu Fernandez, who is also the founder of the new cultural centre, said the African culture has now become the new centre of attraction for the whole world but painfully, Africans have refused to give their culture, religion and tradition the premium attention, hence the wrongful propagation by the foreigners.
Fernandez said that the cultural renaissance centre is not a rebirth but a reawakening of the importance of the Yoruba, Nigerian and African culture as a whole.
She encouraged traditional rulers to begin the propagation of African culture and tradition through their various cultural festivals.
The Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mr. Idris Aregbe lauded the E.Y.O centre, and expressed the readiness of the state government to partner with Yeye O’dua’s lofty initiative.
He said that it was painful that so much had been lost in the people’s culture simply because Africans promote imported culture and tradition more than they promote Africanism.
