Aare Onakakanfo of Yoruba land, Iba Gani Adams, said at the weekend that celebration of Olokun Festival and incorporating the beauty pageant into the event is to encourage youths to embrace Yoruba cultures and traditions.
Iba Adams said this, while speaking at the Miss Olokun Beauty Pageant as part of the 2022 Olokun Festival Foundation (OFF) celebration to mark the 20th anniversary of the body, which took place at Abule Egba in Lagos.
He said the Olokun Festival and over 30 other cultural festivals being promoted by the Foundation was also to correct the wrong impression about Yoruba cultures and traditions in the eye of outside world.
According to him, it is about writing one’s own history by oneself, to prevent a situation where people would write such “wrongly for you.”
“One of the reasons why we celebrate the Olokun Festival and incorporating beauty pageant into it and other cultural festivals is to encourage our young people to embrace our cultures and traditions.
“We also celebrate the Olokun Festival and other cultural festivals to correct the wrong impression global world have about us because if you don’t write your history people will write it wrongly for you,” he said.
Adams, who is also the National Coordinator of Oodu’a Peoples Congress (OPC) as well as Chief Promoter of OFF, while maintaining that the Indus and Jewish equally celebrated their cultures and traditions, noted that it was not about religion and should not be mixed together.
Speaking on the beauty pageant, which he said had been on for the past 20 years, Iba Adams hailed the reigning and past Queens, describing them as pride of the Foundation as, according to him, OFF had never had any scandal at all since the inception of the event.
“The Beauty Pageant is one of the programmes of the 2022 Olokun Festival Foundation.
“Let me congratulate the reigning and past Queens. I can say that you are pride of the Foundation.
“Since we started, we have never had any scandal at all. None of the Queens is involved in scandal to cause embarrassment to the body. We have to thank you for that,” he said.
This was just as the Yoruba generalissimo noted that the Queens were doing very well in their various endeavours, both within and outside the country.
Miss Sanni Solape, 21, a 300 level student of University of Ilorin who represented Edo State, came first as the 2022 Miss Olokun.
Miss Obadiya Shanu 26, from Olabisi Onabanjo University, representing Bayelsa State, was the first Runners up, while Miss Olokun Iyanuoluwapo Akinbinu,25 from
Tai Solarin University of Education representing Oyo State came third in a keenly contested event.
