Leadership (Abuja)
Isaac Aimurie
19 August 2008
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday at the on-going 1st African Arts and Crafts Expo (AFAC Expo 2008), organised by the National Council for Arts and culture said the expo would restore the country's past glory and influence in the crafts industry, and make art and craft a major contribute to the country's foreign exchange earnings.
Jonathan, who was represented by his Senior Special Assistant on Economic Affairs, Mr Samson Wolu, noted that Nigeria being the most populous black nation in the world and the largest country south of the Sahara, has over 50 per cent of her rural population engaged in one form of craft production or the other, though most of them at subsistence and informal levels.
"With over 350 ethnic groups in the country, each ethnic grouping can boast of at least two to three or more craft technology, design or production technique unique to them. This exemplifies the enormous and vast crafts potentials and resources to which Nigeria is endowed. Countries like the United States of America, Japan, South Korea, India, Egypt have gainfully harnessed and utilised their cultural industries to meet their present day requirement."
The level of development in these countries, the vice president maintained was predicated on the creative instincts and abilities emanating from within each country's cultural potentials and resources , and tailored towards local and international acceptance and consumption, adding that arts and crafts industry when developed, packaged and promoted, could be the elixir needed to empower Nigerians.
In his speech, Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, said the challenge to develop the nation's cultural industries gave birth to the 1st Arts and Crafts Expo which seeks to explore, grow, develp and promote market and generally leverage the nation's arts and crafts sector, with the aim of achieving optimal empowerment for Nigerians especially the rural populace.
AFAC Expo 2008 according to Kayode, would not only act as a major catalyst but help to reposition, propel and galvanise the cafts sector in taking its rightful place by contributing positively to the national economy.
Chief Executive officer of National Council for Arts and Culture Mr Malgwi Maidugu told LEADERSHIP that the agency had been looking for an opportunity to promote traditional arts and crafts by people in the rural areas, stressing that AFAC 2008 had provided the platform for the 774 local government areas, the 36 states of Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory, to showcase their cultural wealth.
The expo Maidugu said would be an annual event. 28 states including neighbouring Benin Republic, Senegal and Mali had arrived as at yesterday. The event continues today.
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