How culture can build a more inclusive and just society-Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the work of centres such as the International Centre For Yoruba Arts and Culture could become a base for how culture can help in building a more inclusive, fairer, and more just society.

According to Prof. Osinbajo, who spoke at the launch of the Centre in Ibadan, added that the Centre could strengthen the bonds of unity within an ethnically diverse nation such as Nigeria.

“The work of this Centre should also offer a base and sanctuary which reflects how Yoruba culture can contribute to the tools of nation-building,” the VP stated.

Reflecting on President Muhammadu Buhari’s observation in 2018 that the rest of Nigeria could learn from the accommodating nature of Yorubas in South West regardless of religion, ethnicity, and politics, Prof. Osinbajo asked, “how can the rest of the nation learn as President Buhari observed, from the way Yorubas manage within their families to accommodate diverse faiths and beliefs?

“At a more reflective level, we will through this repository and the traditions embedded in the artworks and cultural artefacts, imbibe the triumphs, challenges, inventions, and spiritual heritage of the Yoruba people.

“And how here at home, Yoruba culture also had to adapt to the onslaught of colonialism in Nigeria by the British and in Benin and Togo by the French. In ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’, a classic play by Professor Wole Soyinka, we see forces at work that tried to adapt cultural practices with tragic consequences.”

Highlighting the Omoluabi philosophy of the Yoruba people, which is used to describe a person of integrity, trust and honour, the VP observed that, “in a nation dogged by the abdication of high values especially in leadership, perhaps the Centre might take on the task of formalizing the pedagogy on the concept of Omoluabi for teaching in our schools.

Omoluabi, the true moral quintessence of the Yoruba race – the virtuous man, or the man or woman of character.

In the same vein, the Vice President noted that “culture is not just about the past, and it is neither static nor immutable, it is constantly creating and recreating;” and “progress is not merely determined by fidelity to tradition, but by our capacity for invention and reinvention.”

Prof. Osinbajo further said Nigeria could further leverage its diversity to harness strength and raise development capital.

On the potential impact of the International Centre For Yoruba Arts and Culture, Prof. Osinbajo observed that “the World Centre will therefore serve not just as a place of memory, but as a place that inspires us and fires our collective imagination, even within the dynamic contexts of advances in technology, ideas and thought.”

Beyond being a place for the study of Yoruba arts and culture, he also stated that the Centre could join the advocacy for the return of artefacts to their original homes, while also becoming a destination point for many Africans in Diaspora to trace their origins to the Yorubas.

Equally, the Centre should also promote closer links between the Yoruba people in the homeland and their kin in the diaspora, he added.