The Executive Secretary/CEO of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Otunba Biodun Ajiboye has said if Nigeria can properly package and promote its rich and diverse culture, it can reflate the economy in a way that foreign exchange becomes a priority.
Otunba Ajiboye who was speaking Co-Guest on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Programme “Tuesday Live” on the topic: “Tourism Potentials and Foreign Capital Flow”, said until Nigerians begin to appreciate their culture to bring it to fore, our quest for development as a nation may remain a mirage.
Cross fertilizing ideas on how to promote the Nigerian agenda through culture, Ajiboye lamented that with the great potentials in culture; Nigeria is yet to think in that line. His words “We are not even aware of how we can turn culture into some magnificent revenue earnings. We must start by realizing that culture is the basic source of pride for humanity and if a nation misses how culture propels pride in humanity, then that nation has missed everything. We are not packaging our culture properly; neither are we taking it serious and it is a major setback”.
“A country that does not have absolute respect for its culture cannot go beyond struggles and that is what has happened to us. Our culture has been sandwiched between Jewish culture, British culture and Arabic cultures and it is beginning to look like we are a bit confused. So, we need to first of all appreciate that our young people must be orientated properly with respect to our culture”.
Further speaking on efforts by the Institute to connect people across the globe towards distilling some aspects of our culture to drive traffic to Nigeria, Ajiboye disclosed that currently, NICO has initiated a project called World Orisa Congress with the discovery that the Yoruba Orisa has an audience of 450 million people across the world.
“Automatically, this is a market for us. For instance, the total number of people that visited Mecca since inception is 2.5 million people and Saudi Arabia has been generating 312 billion USD. About 94 million people visit Spain yearly for tourism; Italy about 60 million people. The point is very simple. We started a project called World Orisa Congress. We have registered it with the CAC with Prof. Wole Soyinka and Prof. Wande Abimbola as Patrons; as well as the Ooni of Ife as Chairman, Board of Trustees. What we are trying to do is to say is that we have a tourism potential here; a market that is ready made with 450 million people across Cuba, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico etc who are very concerned about coming to Nigeria”.
“We have already secured Ministerial and Presidential approvals to proceed with this project and by God’s grace, maybe in another two to three years, it will come to fruition, then we will begin to see how well we can put our house in order with infrastructure; accommodation, transportation, security to create a belt between Ibadan, Oshogbo, Oyo and get the state governments interested; get the business people interested in building infrastructure. That is a sustainable tourism potentiality that we can’t shy away from. With this project, we are sure of the influx of tourists into Nigeria will be higher”, he said.
Caleb Nor
Media Assistant to Executive Secretary, NICO
