Duro-Ladipo in race to preserve yoruba culture

• Holds 4th YCF in Dallas, USA

In an effort to preserve and promote Yoruba culture across the world, especially, the heritage left behind by the late popular Yoruba dramatist, Duro Ladipo, the Impeccable First Eye Concept (IFEC) has expressed the need to celebrate the value of the dominant drama icon of the south west region of Nigeria.

The Principal of IFEC, Akanni Duro-Ladipo, who is also the son of the late Yoruba dramatist and composer, from Osogbo in the State of Osun, revealed the potentials available in tourism for national and continental development, linking the festival to the legacy left behind by his father 37 years ago.

He told The Guardian in Akure that Yoruba in the Diaspora, whose children love the culture and tradition of their origin, but hamstrung by colonial mentality and parental influence, led to the Yoruba Cultural Festival (YCF) initiative in Dallas, USA 2013, to connect them back to the undiluted or incorruptible values of the Yoruba nation.

Duro-Ladipo lamented the sordid state of Yoruba cultural heritage and the poor attitude of the nation at preserving those values and rich culture that should be passed across to coming generation. He narrated his experience during an attempt to retrieve some of his father’s audio-visuals in Nigeria media houses but to no avail till he got many of such original copies in the USA.

“Yoruba Cultural Festival,” according to him, “is a gathering of various people across tribal and racial affiliations to celebrate Yoruba culture, bring people together through interactive experiences at workshops and exhibitions.

“It is planned yearly to celebrate the value of our heritage and to exchange our intellectual appreciation of our culture,” revealing that this year’s festival that is the fourth edition and slated for the second week of September in Dallas, USA, will hold a symposium that centres on Yoruba folklores, parables, lectures, expositions, traditional performances etc., that instill morals in the people.

Like the previous ones, he said the fourth edition would feature five prominent obas, veterans, artistes and other resourceful Yoruba across the globe, planning to organise the first of its kind in Nigeria.

The IFEC boss listed the benefits of the initiative to include re-educating the whole world about Nigeria and correct the bad image, to which many foreigners and African descents who have never been to Africa were indoctrinated; enhance cultural exchange that will bring other people to Nigeria and boost the nation’s tourism potentials and prospects.

Most importantly, Duro-Ladipo affirmed that the trending act among the Yoruba in Diaspora, who imitate others to abandon their old ones in the nursing homes, will be checked and discouraged when they are more enlightened by the moral values and cultural prodding in Yoruba tradition, that old-age is valued among Yoruba children.

He said he has been in talking terms with some institutions in Dallas to build a cultural centre in any of the six Southwest states of Nigeria to exhibit African heritage; thereby, urging government at all levels, corporate bodies and organisations in the country to invest in such initiative.