As part of efforts to promote the Yoruba culture and tradition, the Erelu Yeye O’dua Cultural Renaissance Centre was recently launched with dignitaries from all over in attendance.
The project manager, Asiwaju Carlo Babatunde Sonupe emphasised the need for Nigerians to develop the habit of promoting and exporting their own products.
Sonupe, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Ethos Life Force, a company that markets and promotes African culture, tradition and religion, eulogised the initiative of the Yeye O’dua, Erelu Abiola Dosunmu-Fernandez to assist the youths in realising who they are and what their culture and tradition stand for.
“Nigerians need to develop the habit of promoting and exporting our own products instead of further importing other people’s culture”, he admonished as he lamented that African culture is fast moving into extinction because the people do not appreciate their own tradition and language, among other features.
Sonupe noted that Nigerians and Africans at large are used to importing foreign culture, tradition and goods which have negatively affected the culture.
He said that the Erelu Yeye O’dua Cultural Renaissance Centre would further create jobs and engage the average Nigerian youth positively, while also teaching them about their culture, tradition, language, religion, food, fashion and even business.
This, he noted, would go a long way in changing the mindset of Nigerian youths.
A foremost custodian of the Lagos and Yoruba culture, Erelu Dsunmu-Fernandez emphasised the need for Nigerians to become propagators of their own story and positive way of life.
She said that 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 needed premium attention, hence the adverse propagation by the foreigners.
Dosunmu-Fernandez said 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 thanked the Ọọni of Ife, His imperial Majesty, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and other royal fathers who were present at the event, while also urging them to begin the positive propagation of African culture and tradition through their various cultural festivals.
The Ọọni, who was the special guest, lauded the initiative of the Yeye O’dua and expressed his readiness to assist the lofty initiative.
He said that it was painful that so much has been lost in African culture simply because “we promote imported culture and tradition more than we promote Africanism”.
Dignitaries at the launch and opening of the centre included the Catholic Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Lagos, Archbishop Alfred Adewale Martins; former First Lady of Lagos State, Dame Abimbola Fashola; Sultan of Sokoto, His Majesty Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III; Eminent businessman and philanthropist, Olorogun Bayo Kuku; white cap chiefs from the Idugaran palace in Lagos; and Federal Commissioner representing Lagos State at the National Population Commission, Barrister Olayinka Oladunjoye.
