Day Aregbesola begged Alaafin to save Yoruba culture, tradition from extinction

It is a truth today that African cultures are under threat. These
cultures are in fact been pushed beyond their limits of tolerance in manners that suggest danger.
Recently, His Imperial Majesty, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi
Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, led some prominent traditional rulers in Osun State to the State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, at  the Government House, Osogbo, the state capital.
Shortly after the closed door meeting,  it was reliably gathered that
Aregbesola , who often refer to the Alaafin as
‘’repository of Yoruba  customs, traditions and culture’’, met one on
one with Oba Adeyemi in an inner room, where he begged the paramount
ruler to save Yoruba culture and traditions from going into
extinction.
To Aregbesola, some cultures are in fact already surviving at
the merging, as the time to begin to appreciate and re-appreciate the
cultural importance to  growth is critically now,  as experiences
suggest that the pathways to Nigerian and her development are
strategically hidden in the cultures and cultural-political
determination and resoluteness of the country and the Yoruba region.
He is of the conviction that there is thus a
strong interrelationship among culture, growth, progress, development
and even national integration.
What is more disturbing to Aregbesola is the unprecedented pace
and degree of cultural neglect, especially Yoruba, in the country,
which he noted is unrivalled.
According to him, ‘’the confounding power of cultures to drive growth
can never be underestimated even when they are in their traditional
forms and isolated, let alone when they are appropriated as
collectivities in a nation as viable as Nigeria. Unfortunately, these
cultures have been largely seen as given, familiar, problematic and
unimportant to national growth and development’’.
He stated that cultures as viable tools of development are
under-estimated and not annexed even when the Western nations are
doing everything possible to annex their many cultures for national
and regional sustainable development drive.
Oba Adeyemi had consistently been explaining that the Cultures of
people are veritable social capital that could be deployed for growth
and development and even translated to economic and technological
capitals. Culture is a cure-all for growth and development.
To the Alaafin, nothing is achieved and could be achieved except it is
operated within culture.
‘’These foreign countries gave utmost consideration and attention to
their cultural imperatives, even in diversity and domesticated
developmental trajectories within their cultural domains and
environments. Their cultural ethos determined directions for policies
and demonstrated the road to popular implementation. They made
cultural sense of policies and programmes.’’
The paramount ruler further stated, ‘’without proper annexation of
cultures, no meaningful national integration and development can be
made. This brought about the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) in
order to move the nation forward in terms of needed growth and
development.
The royal father posited that social world and development are created
by humans in sports but beyond, culture is the bearing of every human
action and aspiration, as it determines what groups fight for to
achieve development.
‘’A nation that does not pay sufficient attention to its cultures and
traditions will thus, certainly not grow, never develop and will
ultimately extinct. It will be swallowed up within the scheme of
things as it will lose its very essence and define character that
makes it different for others and that which will drive her growth and
development. What is more, poor appreciation and annexation of culture
will certainly lead to elusive development, just as development
efforts without the prism of culture are wasteful discharge of energy,
shadow boxing and mindless waste of scarce national and regional
resources’’.
Culture, Oba Adeyemi asserted affects policy and economic behavior,
its impact on organization and production, attitudes towards
consumption and work, the ability to create and manage institutions,
and the creation of social networks.
Hence, he adduced that the economic performance could only be best
appreciated and explained against the background of the prevailing
cultural domains.
This, he submitted, also has bearing with the prevailing differences
in subsisting institutions. Cultural trajectories will affect policy
formulations and implementations, adding that it will affect how they
drive growth and development since it will also affect how people and
members of the community perceive and participate in organization’s
activities.
‘’Cultural capitals inform job opportunities, relative prices and a
host of other economic backdrops that determine growth and development
pathways in the region. Since people constitute groups and groups are
diverse, cultures are also, myriad and diverse and could have diverse
effects on growth and development in the region. It then means that as
there are diversity of people and groups, there is diversity of
cultures and this is the case in Nigeria. Domains of cultural
diversity could be observed in linguistics/language, ethnic,
religious, origin, economy, family, health, industrial systems and
across all institutions of the society. Therefore, culture is a force,
very dynamic, lethal and an essential as well as an integral part of
human growth and development in Nigeria’’, Oba Adeyemi argued.