altThe Executive Secretary of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Dr. Barclays Foubiri Ayakoroma, has reiterated the need for the Nigerian nation to look the way of culture in the interest of diversifying and developing the country’s economy.

Dr. Ayakoroma, who made this call on Wednesday, 12th December, 2012, while speaking as guest of the Living Room on Bush House Nigeria, a live phone-in radio programme on Kapital FM 92.9, to sensitize Nigerians about the Institute’s 3rd Annual Public Lecture, with the theme, “Culture, Good Governance and Nigeria’s Democracy,” stated that, it was high time Nigeria looked the way of other sectors, instead of depending on the oil and gas sector alone and that the culture sector is a viable sector as an alternative income earner for the country.

Citing the example of the just concluded Abuja Carnival, the ES said if properly harnessed, the derivable economic benefits from the culture sector are huge, because doing so would develop tourism, which is the marketing of our cultural heritage, including the people, dresses, cuisines, cultural sites, traditional dances, festivals, arts and crafts.  

He stated further that the need to diversify the economy by looking at the potentials in the culture sector, spurred him to deliver a paper, titled, “Between Crude Oil and Cultural Festivals: Which Way Nigeria?” at the Colloquium of the Rivers State Carnival (CARNIRIV) 2012, held at the Rivers State House of Assembly Complex in Port-Harcourt, on Monday, 10th December, 2012, noting that a lot of revenue stream into the local economy, and the nation at large, through these cultural festivals, concluding that if the culture sector is given the necessary attention it has the potentials of changing and growing the Nigerian economy.   

This year’s edition of the NICO Annual Public Lecture series, which was initiated in 2010, holds on Monday, 17th December, 2012, at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Central Business District, Aaltbuja, at 11:00am.

The Vice Chancellor, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Professor Shamsudeen Amali, who is the first Professor of Theatre Arts from Northern Nigeria, is the Guest Lecturer; the Head, Department of Theatre and Film Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Professor Emeka Nwabueze, is Chairman of the Occasion; while the Honourable Minster for Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, High Chief Edem Duke, is the Special Guest of Honour.

It would be recalled that Professor Nwabueze, who is chairing this 3rd edition of NICO Annual Public Lecture, was the guest lecturer at the Inaugural edition, held at the NICON Luxury Hotel, Area 11, Abuja, on the 16th of December, 2010, where he talked on the topic, “Democratization and the Dialectics of Culture in Contemporary Nigeria.”

Jonathan N. Nicodemus
Corporate Affairs