The Executive Governor of Kwara State, His Excellency, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has expressed his administration’s commitment towards supporting the programmes of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), aimed at promoting our cultural values.

Abdulrazaq who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communications, Hajiya Mopelola Rabiat Abdulrahman at the 2021 edition of the Annual Roundtable on Cultural Orientation (ARTCO) organized by the Institute in Ilorin, the Kwara State Capital on the theme: “Culture, Media and National Cohesion in Nigeria”, said NICO has set a good pace towards reviving our cherished cultural values.

According to him, the Institute’s continued efforts at creating platforms for stakeholders in the culture sector and other critical stakeholders to interface and interrogate topical developmental issues from the culture standpoint is commendable, hence the resolve of the state government to support her activities.

“NICO has set a good standard by creating an enabling environment to bring cultural awareness and re-orientation to our people. Our culture, our values, our languages all go together without which we cannot achieve anything meaningful as a people and if we must achieve this, we also need the media to translate our indigenous knowledge and culture to our younger generations”.

Speaking in the same vein, the Otunba of Oraland in Kwara State, Dr. Ade Jacob Afolabi who was chairman of the occasion, said with what NICO is doing towards reviving our cultural values through its numerous orientation programmes, there is need for the federal government to give more attention to the Institute in the area of budgetary allocations to strengthen the Institute in the discharge of its mandate.

He maintained that the Institute has over the years, displayed capacity to rescue Nigerian youths who he said have parted ways with their enviable cultural values in order to rescue our decaying value system towards restoring our peace and peaceful co-existence among the diverse ethnic groups in the country.

His words: “Cultural diversity helps us to recognize and respect ways of being that are not necessary our own. So as we interact with others, we can build bridges of trust, respect and create understanding across cultures, thereby making Nigeria more interesting to live in.

He emphasized that with the immense cultural resources Nigerians are endowed with, the new media with information technologies should be challenged to provide new opportunities for cultural policy makers to broaden their target audience and promote culture more widely so as to enhance inter-cultural relationship, cohesion, build national consciousness among Nigerians and to also provoke Nigeria’s programmes of cultural diplomacy.

Caleb Nor
Media Assist.-ES
NICO HQ
Abuja-FCT