Gani Adams , OPC leader on ENHANCING CULTURAL VALUES FOR NATIONAL. ORIENTATION. AND POLITICAL EMANCIPATION.

ENHANCING CULTURAL VALUES FOR NATIONAL. ORIENTATION. AND POLITICAL EMANCIPATION. By Otunba Gani Adams Ladies and gentlemen. It is a great privilege to stand before you all today I want to warmly welcome you all to the 2015 edition of the Oodua Festival This festival is not just the first of our activities for the year. It symbolizes the cultural heritage of the descendant of Oduduwa, our progenitor. We have gathered at the source of the Yoruba people to celebrate Oduduwa , whose exploits have continued to be a reference point for perfection and enviable behaviour. The Oodua Festival is designed to be the rallying point for the cultural activities, organized and participated in by descendant of Oduduwa. It will in no distant time form the basis for cultural assessment in Yoruba land. There is no gain saying the fact that we are not doing enough to enhance our cultural values. We are not in any way exploring the full potentials of culture to social n political and economic values. Our leaders have not put the necessary machinery in place to propel Nigerians to enviable cultural acceptance. Dear ladies and gentlemen I the title of this year’s lecture is very appropriate, especially at a time, when our country is the focus of the international world. The federal government, no doubt is making efforts to re brand the image of the country through sensitization programme of the National Orientation Agency but I must tell you that we are not getting it right as long as we fail to identify the importance of culture to economic. Political, social, and political development of the country. Dear people of our great nation. , before the recent sharp drop in the price of crude oil , we were hiding under the huge resources of from crude oil to abandon our cultural heritage and in the process negated our social and cultural values , which had adverse effect on our economy. For the purpose of this festival , I will be talking from the point of view of our progenitor - Oduduwa just as I know that our brothers from the north and the east have their progenitor Those, who have deep knowledge about the. Yoruba history will know that Oduduwa was an ideal man for any society The Oduduwa that we are celebrating today is no doubts an epitome of hard work, discipline, love. sincerity and other values that are missing in the modern country of ours Lazy. It is evidently clear that the culture of their people has not impacted positively on their lives. They have not leant from the values of the progenitor of their race Anybody from Yoruba land , who have the ethics of the Yoruba culture , deeply rooted in him will certainly know that stealing, laziness , backbiting , killing and other vices are not associated with Oduduwa Let me at this point empathize the importance of enhanced cultural values to national orientation and political emancipation. The Federal government is spending huge sum of money annually on national orientation. This is laudable but. I must advice them that supporting cultural development is the best form of national orientation , which will automatically translate to political emancipation. If our past leaders had created agencies and government machinery that had developed the cultural tourism. We will not be bothered by the price of crude oil in the world market we won t be talking about insurgency, because it is alien to our culture and we won t be talking about fraud because of the implication. We have talked about American citizens waking up and saying "God bless America ' That has been their culture and it did not start in a day We don t need that National Orientation agency to tell us that insurgency is dangerous to the existence of our national What we need is cultural re awakening Let our government dedicate more resources to cultural enhancement and see the result in national orientation and political emancipation. Let us enlighten our children, using our core cultural values as case study Let our government encourage our parents to attach more importance and dedicate to culture Our traditional institutions also have a role to play I know that they have not been empowered enough to champion the course but let them spur our government into action with their strong commitment. Thank you all for coming. Otunba (Dr) Gani Adams National Coordinator Oodua People’s Congress Convener Oodua Progressive Union Chief Promoter Olokun Festival Foundation