Ekiti State is currently bustling as no fewer than 16 states participate in the 34th edition of the National Festival for Arts and Culture which kicked off on Monday.
The festival with the theme, ‘Celebrating national unity in diversity,’ starting with a command parade and the official opening ceremony, would end on Saturday.
The participating states are Borno, Ogun, Ondo, Bayelsa, Rivers, Kogi, Lagos, Osun, Benue, Delta, Imo, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Yobe and Jigawa states.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the festival spurred economic activities in Ado Ekiti as commercial motorcyclists witnessed increased sales even as large numbers of visitors converged on the state capital.
Meanwhile, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, in his address on Monday, at the opening ceremony of the 34th edition of NAFEST, held at the Ekiti Parapo Pavilion in Ado-Ekiti, urged Nigerians to fully harness the nation’s cultural potentials for national development.
Fayemi said that culture was one of the main pillars of development without which development would be greatly hindered.
“I understand that culture is one of the main pillars of development, so without culture, it is certain that development will be greatly hindered.
“The current state of the nation requires that efforts should be made to revive our diverse culture to enhance the potential in our arts and to ensure socio-political stability and viability of our economy.
“As a country with diverse cultures, it is imperative for us to take advantage of the innate gains of our diversity; we are hospitable, generous and peace loving people. I am happy as the host governor of the 34th NAFEST, my administration has invested in the development of culture. We have gone beyond the development of physical infrastructure to promote culture.
Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, Director-General, National Council for Arts and Culture, said that the 34th NAFEST was a period of cultural integration with the people of Ekiti.
According to Runsewe, the states would be participating in 12 events and competitions such as children’s tales by moonlight, drama, traditional board game, children’s drawing and painting.
Others are children’s essay writing, traditional cuisines, archery, indigenous fabric and fashion as well as cultural market and colourful displays.
He further stated that the festival was a post-civil war cultural creation meant to heal the wounds occasioned by Nigeria’s three-year-war which ended in 1970.
The DG stressed the need to engage culture and come together to fight every form of separatist agitations and security challenges facing the nation.
“We need to remind ourselves now and again that in spite of tribes or tongues, religions or creeds, political or cultural affiliations, Nigeria has been destined to be one nation under God, not even the 30 months civil war could dismember our country.
“There are more things that unite us than those that separate us. It is, therefore, our collective responsibility to continually emphasise those things that unite us and to constantly enrich and build on them,” he said.
(NAN).
