The word culture has always been
subjected to definitions, which more or less brings it to some difficulty in
understanding its context and meaning. The very classification
of the definition and concept of culture is a retrace of the root word for
it. Its Latin origin associates it with "cultura" or
"colere", the past participle of cult which means “cultivate
or “inhabit.” In general, culture is the accumulated generations of
all that is excellent about a group of people in the various forms of their
arts and material objects, manners, customs, ways of living, behavioral
patterns, habits, systems of knowledge,
beliefs, language, experience in terms of conquering and nurturing nature, their
environment and all their intra and inter societal relationships. It
includes values that differentiate good from evil, right from wrong,
natural from unnatural occurrences. All these issues of the concept of culture
and the cultivation of the societal norms and forms get socially transmitted,
learnt and imitated from generations to generations, then ultimately form the
tradition of societies.
Generally, culture manifests and is
recognised by those who share its forms, norms, elements and values. The
way culture manifests and is recognized within any shared group, is found in
words, gestures, arts & objects and heroes – past, present, real or
fictitious. Culture is a prized characteristic of any society
or any group of people and may be practiced by way of rituals which are
considered socially essential. Culture manifests in the manner of greetings,
ways by which respect is paid to others and in religious and social ceremonies.
Hence, no society’s culture is superior or an inferior to another, since the various
characteristics of culture differ from one society to the other. This
therefore brings one to lament over the way our various cultures in Nigeria are
being manifestly disregarded, eroded and jettisoned for the culture of
seemingly superior societies. Our cultures are indeed being subsumed
for the so-called superior societies of Europe and America. They are
being neglected and demonized. Our languages are gradually disappearing. People
generally no longer communicate with their children in their local languages
and would rather bring up their children with foreign languages. Our
value system of differentiating what is good from bad, what is right from wrong
is also being super-imposed by the so-called superior culture of the Western
world.
Our cultural practices, being
generally ritualistic, is very different from the system of congregational worship
of the culture of the Western world. The lack of understanding of this basic difference,
has probably given rise to the complete denigration of our culture for western
established religious with many social institutions in our mist, reeling out
derogatory remarks about our culture. Unfortunately our people have generally bought
into this derogation and denigration. This is in spite of how lowly our
people and society are rated by the people whose cultures we are shamelessly
preferring.
To demonstrate how lowly we
were regarded by the British, I hereby offer you the opinion of Lord Frederic
John Dealty Lugard expressed in 1926. He is our country’s first governor
general and I quote; “In character and temperament,
the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person,
lacking in self-control, discipline and foresight. Naturally courageous, and
naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity……………………. he suffers
little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is
far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic………………..
Through the ages , the African appears to have evolved no organized religious
creed, and though some tribes appears to believe in a deity, the religious
sense seldom rises above pantheistic
animalism and seems more often to take
the form of a vague dread of the
supernatural…………………… He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously
deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the
display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility……………….. he will work
hard with a less incentive than most race ”.
This is representative of how we have
been held by Caucasian philosophers since about 500Bc with Homer who stated
that “Africans belong to the race of
savages and monstrous tribes who are dog eared and headless….. they support
their eyes in their chest”
When we were under the rule of the Britain
empire, some of the things they employed to colonize our mental state were
religion, the law and the guns. Religion is defined as any system of
belief and worship of higher unseen controlling power or powers with emotion
and morality connected therewith. During the colonization of Nigeria
by the British, they indoctrinated our people into equating our culture with religion. To
control our minds, they cleverly personified, encapsulated and branded all the
elements of our culture as religiously demonic and unfortunately by this, we
have and are by this, distancing ourselves from our own culture. Unfortunately we have
not generally realized that the spiritual aspect of our culture and practices
do not equate to religion as defined in western culture. This is because, the
spiritual aspect of our cultural life is not based on any system of their congregational
worship. As of fact, our culture is only associated with ritualism of our deities. Ritualism
in our culture, relates to engagement in a series of rites in the manner of
performing divine ceremonies to our deities. In our culture,
different deities are symbols of divinity which are messengers of God Almighty.
These deities intercede with God on our behalf. Rituals in our culture are
devoid of congregational worship, but rather they generally involve festivals
and ritualistic activities at isolated locations in series of rites by few
people from time to time. This is distinct from that of western and Arabic cultures
where their religions are based on congregational worships which happen in
pre-determined times, of regular congregational religious services where
adorations are paid directly to God Almighty by large member of people in
agreed specific locations solely identified for such purpose.
During the interpretation of the
English Bible into Yoruba language by Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the nearest
he could find relating to Satan (the devil) was Esu. Whereas Esu is
not Satan in Yoruba culture. In Yoruba culture, the devil is believed
to reside in every human being and does not exist as an entity by itself. In
the Yoruba culture, Esu is one of the deities (disciples) of
God, or one of the archangels of God whose job is the enforcer of God’s justice,
and who is sent by God (Eledumare) on
errands to punish the offenders of God Almighty. Bishop Crowther erroneously
substituted Satan in his interpretation of the English bible for Esu
and unfortunately to this day, this misconception of Esu, is continued and
promoted by western and Arabic religious writers, followers, stakeholders, institutions
and religious houses of worship. Our gullibility as a people in accepting this
indoctrinating misconception of the British needs to be contrasted to that of
Indians in India, who are another set of people and country of historical
similarity to ours.
As of contrast, India was colonized
by the British Empire in the year 1600 and did not attain independence until
1947. Thus, the British ruled India for a total of 347 years
(compare 99 for Nigeria). Yet the culture of the Indians in Hinduism remains
intact till date. As at date, 80% of Indians practice their Hindu
culture and religion with only 18% being Moslems and 2%
Christians. Now, fast-forward home to Nigeria.
The current entity called Nigeria was
colonized by the British in 1861 and given independence in 1960, a period of
only 99 years. Yet our culture has been denigrated, demonized and belittled to
the extent that our people generally regard our culture as inferior and demonic
and would rather preferably associate with the culture of the British which
ruled us for only 99 years as against 347 years of India.
The situation is so painful when visits
are made to our churches with their stained glass artworks of angels produced
and displayed to promote the Christian religion to their congregations. All
the holy elements, objects, people and angels are painted as Caucasians; there
are no black angels in the stained glass artworks in the Nigerian churches for
their black congregations. One then begins to wonder whether it ever occurs
to these black Nigerian worshipers of these churches, whether they are not deluding
themselves in hoping to go to heaven through Christianity where no black angels
reside.
All through our history, the
Caucasian race have programmed us as a people to feel inferior through
consistent Christian religious manipulation to exploit and enslave us. An
example, can be cited in history of the letter of King Leopold II of Belgium to
the colonial missionaries to Africa, dated 1883, under his seal of office. I
quote the content of this letter:
“Reverends, Fathers and Dear Compatriots: The task that is given
to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. You will go certainly to
evangelize, but your evangelization must inspire above all Belgium interests.
Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the
niggers to know God, this they know already. They speak and submit to a Mungu,
one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don't know. They know that to kill,
to sleep with someone else's wife, to lie and to insult is bad. Have courage to
admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. Your
essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials,
which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best
to protect your interests in that part of the world. For these things, you have
to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty
[in their underground. To avoid that, they get interested in it, and make you
murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you. Your knowledge of
the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your
followers to love poverty, like “Happier are the poor because they will inherit
the heaven” and, “It's very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of
God.” You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which
gives courage to affront us. I make reference to their Mystic System and their
war fetish – warfare protection – which they pretend not to want to abandon,
and you must do everything in your power to make it disappear. Your action will
be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won't revolt when the
recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent's teachings. The
children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the
father of their soul. You must singularly insist on their total submission and
obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read
and not to reason. There, dear patriots, are some of the principles that you
must apply. You will find many other books, which will be given to you at the
end of this conference. Evangelize the niggers so that they stay forever in
submission to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints
they are undergoing. Recite every day – “Happy are those who are weeping
because the kingdom of God is for them.”
The above letter to the Caucasian
missionaries posted to Africa written by king Leopold, shows the real intention
of the Christian missionary journey to Africa. The letter was exposed to the
world by Mr. Moukouani Muikwani Bukoko who per chance in 1935, while working in
the Congo, bought a second hand Bible from a Belgian priest that forgot a copy
of the written speech under the crest of King Leopold II in the Bible.
An example of a society that did not
allow religious super-imposition on their culture are the
Japanese. The Japanese Shoguns, clearly realized the danger of Japanese
conversion to Christianity by forming a 5th column within the
Japanese society and people. This 5th column was
loyal to their co-religionist in Europe only for the purpose of ridding Japan
of the danger of the imposition of Western religion on their society. Thus in
the late 16th century, the Shoguns began their expulsion of
Portuguese and Spanish missionaries on the grounds that they were forcing
Japanese to become Christians, teaching their disciples to wreck Japanese temples,
taking and trading in slaves, etc.
Indeed in 1956, it became clear to
Japanese authorities that Christianization had been used as a prelude for
Spanish conquests of other lands and it quickly dawned on them that the 5th column
loyal to Rome and controlled by the priest of the foreign religion was a clear
danger to their sovereignty. Hence soon after, the persecution and
suppression of Japanese Christians began. That is how Japan saved its
population from the indoctrination and colonization of the mentality of its
people by the western missionaries. Thus as of today, Japan is made up of about 129 million people,
majority of which remain Shintoists because they did not allow the missionaries
to denigrate their Buddhist and Shintoist culture.
Come back home, our society is
predominantly Christians and Muslims. Yet it is these two religions that enslaved
our people for about 400 years. In fact, even when the British had abolished
slavery in Black Africa in 1823, the Muslim Arabs still continued the trade. They
continued the trans-Saharan slave trade to supply Black Africans as slaves to
white slave masters in America and defied the efforts of anti-slavery movements
in Europe and America. The slavery of our people continues till
today. Except that this time, the slavery is that of the mind and
our economy.
To avoid being accused of departing
from the topic of this paper, which is the Impact of Promoting Culture in
National Development, I will now focus on considering the implications of
culture to our national development and in doing so, limit my discourse of
culture to the human accumulation of institutions, mores and ideational
constructs that govern societies and
nations. I will in the first instance, sketch an
analogy in my approach, to the true understanding of culture and how the word, “culture “lodges into a larger concept
of national development.
So many years after God created the
world, what nature offered humans was just about sufficient. Society
had no need to cook, little need to fetch water, harvest oranges nor do
anything outside gathering what God created within our immediate environment to
feed our small family units. After the discovery of the plough Society
gradually grew into more enlarged family units, such that what it could gather
from nature’s immediate offering, became inadequate for its family needs and
purposes. This seeming condition of need became one, where the human
brain was put to task to find ways to overcome its dependence on
nature. Many inventions of today, were created by man over time, in such
situations of increased societal need. Communities grew larger and
larger and there was need to satisfy man’s needs across distant
lands. It is in such circumstances that man-made knives from
sharpened rock flints were used to cut logs of wood. These logs of
wood were then used as transportation medium for heavy items from one place to
another. On a set of many logs, would be placed heavy objects. In
this setting, the logs with the heavy objects became rollers, with one last log
taken to the front as soon as the objects rolled over it. Gradually,
the objects got to their destinations. This is one of the ways by which
the Egyptians built their incredulous pyramids.
Thus in general, what nature could
not offer society, man found ways out by tasking human intellect for solutions. In
primitive society, such as in the above examples, what nature could not offer,
society created to meet its needs. These societal solutions brought
about two distinct ideas co-existing together. These are made of,
the world of human-made culture and nature inherited culture of society. The
nature inherited culture are those inherited without society’s interposition or
involvement, which constitutes man’s heritage. The human made
cultures of society are those cultures cultivated by man, which in many
instances are placed against nature’s many gifts.
In general, the primitive
approach of man, in early society provides us an insight into how culture and
society developed to accumulate ideas such as material things, artifacts and
concepts and institutions.
Considering the state of competence
of early society, what was a most primitive way of moving items would become
the forerunner of the motorized vehicle in the track of the development of
culture. For, not too long, it occurred to humanity that those logs
of wood that needed relocation from the back to the front, in a mobile
trajectory could be approached in another way by making roller discs from logs,
which are connected with slim strong wooden members. A pair of such
constructions could thus bear loads that could now be rolled with twine or
pushed to roll on and on. With time, it turned out that animals
could be trained to roll such transportation devices. This was how the
Cart was invented from the ancestry of mobile logs. It was not too
long again, that it was discovered that the animal could be replaced with a
motorized device now pulling discs of metal radial tires. A motor
vehicle was then eventually invented. The reminiscence of the way
the horse was useful in this regard is responsible in defining engines with
such terminologies as five horse power, etc, etc.
I have spent time so far discussing
what may appear a narrative regarding culture. This is because
definitions appear to limit the ambiences that bring to prominence what a
concept or terminology stands for. What the explanation above thus
stands for therefore, opens up for us, the understanding that culture is a human
institution with structure, as far as human intellect can allow, which is
constantly built upon to facilitate better society for
humans. Culture accommodates past accumulations of human
institutions, industry and conventions, which we refer to as heritage. The
above understanding is the reason why I interpret culture, as the cumulative
material and mental deposits that are outstanding with a group of people. These
may include but is not limited to all things made by humans, which, as George
Kubler (1962) notes, are hard-worn solutions to problems that confront
society. Things made by the human, on the other hand, implicate the accumulation
of symbols, manners, customs, habits, system of knowledge, beliefs, modes of
communication, ethics and mores, recreations, procreation, etc.
The above are usually socially shared
or transmitted under what we generally regard as tradition. As we
all know, with the analogy of the development of the automobile, which I have earlier
mentioned it shows, that there is nothing static about
tradition. Tradition could then mean ‘translation’. This
is because when we take tradition as convention, it has a follow-up
consequence, which is innovation. This is what we refer to as
development. Two conventions or instincts of humans, support the
above assumption. In philosophical parlance “to live is to change
and to have changed often is to be perfect.” Change comes in the
guise of the aspiration of an age to create a difference between it and what is
inherited from past ages. Without landmark impact, an era would pass
without impact and may never be remembered for what it added to cultural
heritage. Another cause for change relates to the Senghorian saying
that “we are all cultural half-castes.” It simply implies that we
also depend on others outside our culture to change. Thus, change
that re-energizes culture comes as a product of intercultural dialogue and
negotiations.
So far in this text, development is seen
within a framework that points to human development that is qualitative and not
quantitative. While qualitative growth leads to value-added or
better quality of life, a development that is quantitative simply addresses
contexts that point to development. In a nutshell, to develop is to
exhibit a progression that is driven by perfection and better life offerings.
The question now is, how does a
cultural outlook occasion national development and cultural progress?
We should in answer to this question,
be looking at the factor called tourism. A tourist is that
individual who leaves the comfort of his abode and culture to another in order
to experience what is not available to him or her. This is key to
why tourism occurs at all. This implies that when society is ordered
and packages itself and its culture well, it is bound to attract people who
have come to experience its uniqueness. In recent times, Nigeria has
been suffering from economic hemorrhage of all sorts. Such condition
is partly funded by the penchant of Nigerians to engage in educational,
recreational and health tourism .The other tourist engagements by Nigerians
worthy of note is the need for holidays and shopping. When properly harnessed,
good cultural and heritage management instigates tourism. This is
found in the way the creative enterprise of a nation is packaged and cared
for. The current state of our national heritage sites and
conservation of hardware heritage in Nigeria is worrisome and does not promote
either domestic or international tourism.
In a world without borders, or in this
age of globalization, the rate of change owing to intense cultural trading and
dialogue would appear to blur or obfuscate local and national differences. In
general, societal cultural civilizations have continued to remain stimulating
and also generate cultural uniqueness. This has not been so with us
in Nigeria.
Nigeria is blessed with very rich cultural
heritage. The cartographic boundary known as Nigeria, hosts the most
diverse culture and works of creative art in Africa. These works are
not only diverse; but are also rich in content. This truth remains,
such that when the late keeper of our national heritage, Professor Ekpo Eyo wrote
the book entitled Two Thousand Years of Nigerian Art, he
underestimated grossly, the time value of Nigerian art. The
contemporary sustenance of the avid and robust practice in creative arts in
Nigeria today, is being sustained predominantly by the private sector
individuals and institutions. When the economy of Nigeria was recently
rebased, it factored into it the impact of the film industry which is also
mostly private sector driven. Its impact at about 2% of our GDP as
rebased, remains impressive. Unfortunately, the exclusion of a
commensurate value that relates to the visual arts was left out of this
rebasement. This is in spite of the real and the new dynamics that
now define the visual art market in Nigeria.
Driven predominantly by the private sector,
the Nigerian art market in general, has sustained cultural
tourism. But there is the need for government to play its expected
regulatory and developmental policy role, in monitoring and collating data for
an effective data base and develop a network of institutions and infrastructure
to complement private sector initiative. Mundane challenges such as
insecurity, lack of good road networks, power supply, good transportation
system, poor recreational hospitality and leisure facilities, the absence of a
published annual calendar of cultural festivals etc, etc, continue to hamper a
robust tourism performance of Nigeria in the world scene.
Nigeria once had an enviable and very
functional National Theater that housed some collection of modern and contemporary
works of art. Currently, a great controversy over the propriety of
the edifice is raging. The art holdings there has been left to
depreciate. As at today, with an enviable and robust presence in
contemporary art practice, Nigeria lacks a national edifice – a national gallery
– for the display of its own national collection of works of art. It
is not that government should necessarily solely fund such institutions, there
are public private sector partnership strategies available to achieve the establishment
of such national institutions.
The Nigerian museums managed by the
National Commission for Museum and Monuments are currently in sorry states of
disrepair and comatose in their vision to drive cultural awareness and heritage
management. There is indeed the need to reinvent the attitude and
perception of agencies responsible for the visibility of the nation’s cultural
holdings. These are National Commission for Museums and Monuments,
National Council for Art and Culture and the National Gallery of
Art. They appear to have become their own problems by succumbing to
the debilitating bug that now drives consciousness in Nigeria. The
effect of the bug is more dangerous than the way cancer destroys the cells it
takes a hold on.
What must be told, however, by way of
reiteration, is that tourism is funded by a lot of factors which a developing
nation like Nigeria lacks. I have itemised these to include among
other things, security, good power supply, well developed and active cultural
heritage architecture and sustaining activity, good and efficient transactional
platforms of diverse and efficient means of commuting across space and
place. Nigeria is definitely not in want of culturally rich
heritage. My offer is that, the reason why Nigeria appears
unattractive is self-inflicted. The accompanying statistics in the
attached table to this paper, show that as at end 2013, France topped the list
of tourists destinations in the world. The advantage of France over
other nations of tourist destinations, is the stability of the factors earlier mentioned. The
Nigerian situation can be improved upon. The French have invested over
the years in the development and cultivation of cultural embodiments that
attract tourists from every parts of the world. Such cultural embodiments,
include but are not limited to, the
Eiffel Tower, the Museum de Branly, the Louvre , the Museum D'Orsay, the Rodin
Museum, the Picasso museum, the Griven Museum, the Aviation Museum, the
Military museum, various rich French Chateaux,
the various wine growing regions of the Bordeaux and Nice among others. All these leads to France, as at
end 2013, attracting 85 million tourists per annum visiting its cultural
edifications compared to its population of only 65 million people. This leads
to about 30% visiting tourists over its population.
Another country of such tourism
importance as at 2013 is Spain, which attracts about 29% more tourists
than its population.
The UAE as at end 2013, where
Nigerians, annually troop to in droves,
has only 9 million population but attracts over 10 million tourists per annum
to this former predominantly desert region that has been developed within
30years to attract tourists from all over the world. What do these
nations have that attract people to them? They have cultivated cultural
edifices and have developed events around their God-given cultural heritage
sites. They have also created man-made museums art edifices and cultural
monuments.
I have had to do a study based on
some 20 leading tourists’ nations in the world and in that study which I took
from Wikipedia, I found that as at end 2013, on the average of these 20
countries, attract 43% of their population as tourists per annum. When we
extrapolate this into Nigeria's population, if only and if our country could
take tourism seriously, rather than engaging in corruption laden and foolery of
holding annual cultural festivals in Abuja, then our country would be attracting
about 75 million tourists visitors per annum to its shores. I have also found from
this study, that as at end 2013, on the average, tourist visitors spend about
1,250 USD per annum per tourist. When this is multiplied by about 75
million tourist potential for Nigeria, our country can generate about 94
billion USD from tourism per annum. To achieve this, all it takes is for
Nigeria to take its tourism seriously. Redevelop tourism facilities in Calabar
and Obudu cattle ranch, the two museums in Calabar, redevelop Olumo rock and
the Itoku area of Abeokuta, redevelop the Gurara Falls in Jos and create more
zoo, etc, etc. Build two museums of modern art in Lagos and Abuja, refurbish
existing museums of antiquities and create water tourism edifices around our
internal water ways and Atlantic shore line. Build cultural monuments and
cultivate cultural activities around them all over our country, train and
develop a lack crop of tourist guides, re-orientate people into appreciating
tourism as a great platform for our national economic development etc, etc.
Such recommendations if effected
would lead to creating employment for the teeming unemployed of over 60% youths
in our population.
I urge us all to notice that the
nations that have prospered in the world have done so by integrating their
culture into their national development. An example is china, which is a predominantly
Hinduist, Buddhist and a Taoist society and is the world's second largest
economy. They have successfully resisted any foreign imposition, debasement and
erosion of their culture.
India is predominantly 80%
Hinduist and it is one of the leading economies of the world. Japan, of
129 million people with the greatest majority of its population being
Shintoists is the third richest country in the world. America has refused
to allow others to change its culture, not even the French which occupied a
portion of that country at some time in its history and neither the British.
Even their spoken and written English is different from that of the Standard British
English. They have retained their culture and have grown and developed to be
the leading economy and power in the world.
Tourism has definite advantages
towards development and midwifing good governance, stable institutions and
infrastructure. Considering that private sector cultural productions
in Nigeria remain robust, it has become imperative for governments to stimulate
cultural and artistic investments activities, events, festivals and heritage
sites. Governments may not necessarily be involved
directly. All that government is required to do, is to create the
enabling environment to encourage the private sector with appropriate
incentives above the UNESCO minimum recommended standard to which Nigeria is a
signatory.
As we conclude, it is pertinent to
observe that the monetary gain of tourism is usually not an end in
itself. On the other hand, tourism fosters development through
intercultural trading, dialogues and negotiations. It also offers
Nigeria the greatest avenue to improve and integrate its social, ethnic and
tribal diversity, through domestic tourism emanating from the development of
cultural heritage sites, activities, festivals and events. No culture improves
without the experience of other cultures. Awareness that a society
is not alone and that it is sought out regularly, for what it has, is a strong
drive towards national development. Development that is qualitative
in terms of human capacity development, infrastructural and institutional
development, is progressively built up on the long run, in intense situations
of intercultural dialogues. Nigeria needs to focus attention now on
these critical areas. After all, the value of cultural development as
an inestimable value that serves any given populace before it gets to
others.
At this stage of our history, we
need to embody our different material forms of culture in terms of their
ability to generate income for our nation through domestic and international
tourism. This will not only generate income, but also to promote interaction
within our culturally diverse nation by promoting intra and inter relationship
between the different ethnic and tribal societies of our nation.
Culture has a way by which it
attracts such interactions and one of the ways by which these interactions are
enhanced is by creating activities, developing God-given cultural sites,
creating man-made cultural sites, creating events around the culture of a
people to attract intra national and international movements of people and such
touristic movement. This is why one bleeds internally when one recollects
the attitude of Nigerians in their lack of self-esteem and identity of their
very rich culture. The demonization of our culture goes a long way in
destroying the intra-tourism potential of our nation. The great nations
of the world have developed their God-given cultural structures, they have
recreated innovative structures to embody their culture and these structures
have led to great tourism potentials for such nations and developed their
national wealth.
We need to look around the world to
learn from countries that have used their culture as a means of developing
their nations. Nigeria has a great potential at developing itself into one of
the greatest countries of the world if she could polish, rebuild and realign
its culture, promote its culture and encourage its youths to imbibe the culture
of our forefathers. In this wise, I commend the Kegites club of Nigeria
for promoting our culture and hope that they would raise the level of
acceptability of palm wine to that of beer in Germany and to other parts of the world in general and thus promote our
culture internationally. Let us gyrate.
Thank you for your
attention.
Prince
(Engr) Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon
B.SC.(Hons) Engr, MBA, LLB(Hons), BL, D.Litt ACS,
CCS; F.loD, FNSE, FNIM, FCIM, FBIM, FNIMN, FNIAE, COREN, CEngr
Principal Partner
Knightage Attorneys,
Ikeja
&
Founder
/ CEO
Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art
Foundation (OYASAF
References
Katanturu by Prof. Sophie B. Oluwole
(first edition 2011)
Cultural Heritage Law and Management in
Africa by Prof. Folarin Shyllon (2013)
Socrates and Orunmila by Prof. Sophie B.
Oluwole (2015)
A Little History of the World by Ernst
Gombricjh (1985)
Black Africa by Laure Meyer (1994)
New Traditions from Nigeria Seven
Artists of the Nsukka Group by Simon Ottenberg (1997)
Masterpieces of Nigerian Art by Dr. Ekpo
Eyo (2008)
Wikipedia
UNWTO
World Tourism Barometer Rankings
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