Lagos – The Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture (LSCAC) on Tuesday said the council’s inter-countries cultural exchange programme had yielded positive results for the state and the country.
The Director of LSCAC, Mrs Saidat Otulana, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the council had cultural exchange programme with countries, including Venezuela, Cuba, Ghana and India.
Otulana said that agreement for the programme was reached when the council projected Nigeria’s culture to the countries.
“Nigeria’s cultures are envied by most of these foreign countries we visited between 2010 and 2014.
“We were there to project our arts, crafts, cuisine, drumming, tie and dye, beading and lots more to these countries and they readily accepted our rich culture and arts,’’ Otulana said.
“After the visit, we still received letters of invitation from Venezuela and India; they are still enthusiastic to learn more of our culture.
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“We have a very rich culture which they value more than we do and then, I observed that Venezuela and India have similar cultural element with us,’’ she said.
The director said she noticed that in those countries, the women especially, cherished their cultural values, language and mode of dressing more than the foreign ones.
Otulana then urged Nigerian women to uphold Nigerian culture by shaping their children through life in the knowledge and practice of their culture.
According to Otulana, women are the first contact an infant comes across in life and are the one God designed to impact knowledge, culture and other social values in a child.
She said that whatever parent do, the child emulates and forms his or her believe system all through life.
“Our culture must be promoted through the woman in the home to relinquish the believe system and tradition of her ancestors to her children.
“Children these days have magnetic brains so they tend to pick up every attitude, language and practices they are exposed to in the house.
“When the mother speaks her indigenous language to her child, such child will be exposed to English in the school but acculturation starts from home.
“Every woman must be proud of her culture which is her identity.
“We don’t need to concentrate more on westernising our children and leave our culture to derail before our very eyes.
“Such children will not fit into the society later in life when they practise too much of the western culture.
“Now ladies prefer to wear leggings and tight fitting trousers as opposed to our wrappers which tend to protect and leave our private parts private to us only,’’ Otulana Said.
The director said that mothers should embrace and modernise Nigeria’s cultural heritage as it strengthened peace, unity and created a sense of belonging in individuals in the society. (NAN)
