Oyo State Government, on Monday, celebrated the 2022 Omituntun Pacesetter Festival of Arts & Culture amidst pomp and pageantry.
\nThe Commissioner for Information, Culture, and Tourism, Wasiu Olatunbosun, while speaking at the event held at the Lekan Salami, Adamasingba Stadium, Ibadan, said the occassion was organized to promote the Yoruba arts, culture, and heritage.<\/p>\n
He added that the festival is part of the efforts of the Oyo State Government to preserve and promote the beauty of Yoruba culture to the entire world.
\nHe explained that the festival was used to showcase the 33 Local government potentials in Arts, and Culture and to identify new talents that will represent Oyo State in national festivals like Abuja carnival and Nigeria art and culture festivals.<\/p>\n
Olatunbosun maintained that Governor Seyi Makinde-led administration is providing an enabling environment for businesses to thrive, adding that over 160 tourism potentials are in the State.
\nHe said: \u201cThis is the second edition of the Omituntun Pacesetter cultural festival and our aim is to promote arts and culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to use this opportunity to identify new talents that we can use to represent Oyo State in national festivals like the Abuja carnival and Nigerian art and culture. So, the talents that we identify today will be the set of people that will be representing Oyo State.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are using this forum because we realize that the representatives of Oyo state are getting older and we need new talents that we can showcase anywhere and any time they have a national or international festival of arts and culture.
\n\u201cWe all know that Oyo State is a haven of culture and art as well as tourism and this administration has succeeded in making an atmosphere for private investors to come to Oyo State.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see that the number of hotels, that is hospitality business, has really increased in Oyo State because of the environment created by Governor Seyi Makinde, and we have succeeded in creating another environment for other tourism investors to come and invest in the area of tourism.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, for instance, we have about 160 tourism potential in Oyo State and we want people to come. As you can see, this is a culture and tourism festival. We have many people all over Nigeria that came home from abroad to witness today\u2019s festival.
\n\u201cThis administration has succeeded in making an atmosphere for private investors to come to Oyo State.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I said, this is the second one. We had the first one last year. By God\u2019s grace, we are going to have another one next year. So, it\u2019s going to be an annual event and if you look at the Aso Oke festival, before we came in, they had issues but the moment we came in we started it. So, we had it last year, we are going to have it this year as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this one cuts across all those set of cultures across the 33 local governments in the state. So, unlike the Aso Oke festival that is domiciled in Iseyin and the Festival that is domicile in Ibarapa central, this festival cuts across 33 local governments of the state and it will help us to develop the talents and help them to showcase their cultural potential that they want the whole world to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at what we are doing today, we are live-streaming it and people are seeing it all over the world and we have people all over continents that are watching it live and if you look at it, you will see that even most local governments showcase young talents.<\/p>\n
So, with those young talents, that means that this adage in Yoruba that says \u2018Oosa ti aba fi oju omode kan, ko ni parun.\u2019 So that literally means that if you start teaching your children your religion and the festival of your family, that festival will not go into extinction so that is exactly what we are doing. If we don\u2019t have this forum, those potentials will just die without living them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the activities at the event include parade by 33 Local Government Cultural Troup, displayed of Food Courts\/Arts and Craft Exhibition stands.
\nHighlights of the event was presentation of certificates, plaques to troupes with best king\/queen; best food court\/ Arts & Culture Exhibition.
\nOther awards were given to the troupe with best Masquerade display; Most disciplined contingent and best costume.
\nThe best Overall Best Performance was given to Saki West Local Government, while Oyo West was the first runner up.<\/p>\n
Ibadan South-West and Iseyin Local Governments had the third and 4th positions.
\nMoreso, the event was graced by personalities such as, Maye Olubadan of Ibadanland, Senior Chief Lekan Alabi; Chief Bayo Oyero; Senator Monsurat Sunmonu; Local Government Chairmen, Political functionaries and host of others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oyo State Government, on Monday, celebrated the 2022 Omituntun Pacesetter Festival of Arts & Culture amidst pomp and pageantry. The Commissioner for Information, Culture, and Tourism, Wasiu Olatunbosun, while speaking at the event held at the Lekan Salami, Adamasingba Stadium, Ibadan, said the occassion was organized to promote the Yoruba arts, culture, and heritage. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,11,14,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-entertainment","category-events","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n