Olokun Festival Foundation lauds Lai Mohammed on cultural tourism

The declaration made by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, that “I can assure you that by January 2016, when we will start rolling out our programmes, we will be able to mop up as many unemployed youths as possible using the cultural platform. What we have decided to do is to cooperate with all states and ask each state to give us 10 cities in their state, 10 festivals and 10 cultural industries. With this, we can have 360 festivals plus another five in Abuja making 365 festivals in Nigeria. This will mean that for every day, there will be festival taking place in one part of Nigeria” has been described as the very first and hope raising statement concerning culture and tourism since the assumption of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
The Chief promoter Olokun Festival Foundation, Otunba Gani Adams, made this observation in his reaction to the minister’s statement made in Lagos on Monday
“Ï must confess that this is the first heart-cheering and soul-lifting policy statement concerning cultural tourism which ever emanated from this government and communicated to the people via a cultural event in Lagos. This is laudable, plausible and commendable”.
Adams said that “It seems there is now a clear vision and direction for cultural tourism promotion of Nigeria not only as an entertainment factor but as an employment generator machine, wealth mobilizer and poverty extinguisher going by the statement credited to Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
“Our fortune as a nation lies in our culture which is the totality of our existence. We have the ingredients of culture in multitude. It is diverse. It is multifarious. It is intertwined. Do we talk of the awesome geographical denotation in each of the regions, the spectacular landscape from the Sea of Lagos to the Plateau in Mambilla of the Taraba, the desert of Yobe and the thick forest of the South? Do we talk of dances, songs, culinary values, sartorial indulgences, language, the visual, the performing arts as typified by the classical arts of the National Troupe and our Nollywood? Do we talk also of our exciting life style, our pristine heritage? We have all these in abundance.
“I am happy and delighted that the present Federal Government has come is seeing what the Olokun Foundation has been diligently prompting in Nigeria since its inauguration and registration.
“It is the vision and mission of Olokun Festival Foundation to galvanize and mobilize people in the South-West state including Kwara to embrace, love and promote their cultural values for tourism benefits that led into identification of 24 Cultural festivals Calendar which the foundation has been celebrating for years”.
Adams pointed out that “while I commend the proclamation by the Minister, I want to draw the attention for the need to study those Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and Croatia which have been successful in using culture to drive their tourism potentialities”.
He called on Nigerians to always rise above personal animosity, party affiliation and relationship idiosyncrasies whenever there is a glint of positive policy action which can benefit the nation in general.
“As a change agent determining to ensure the promotion and protection of our cultural values for positivity’, which it has diligently pursued as a mission for years which has led to the emergence of a 23 Festival calendar, the Olokun Foundation does not only commend the vision of the Federal Government but ready to support, reinforce and contribute its quota for the success of the policy”.