| PANAFEST moves to Nigeria
•As Tinubu becomes Grand Patron
By TOSIN AJIRIRE
Saturday,
November 28, 2009
|
•Asiwaju
Bola Tinubu receiving award as the Grand Patron of PANAFEST
Nigeria from Sylvester Parker-Allotey, Consular-General
of Ghana
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
|
|
The Pan African Historical Theatre Festival (PANAFEST) is
set to shift base from Ghana, a traditional home where it
has held for several years, and relocate to Nigeria.
Taiwo and Kehinde Oluwafunso, PANAFEST representatives in
Nigeria, reveal that all arrangements have been concluded
to make this happen in a grand way. But then the first giant
step to holding the international festival in Lagos took place
on Tuesday during the presentation of Gold Award and conferment
of PANAFEST Grand Patron on former governor of Lagos State,
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu by Mr. Sylvester J.K. Parker-Allotey,
Consular-General of Ghana in Lagos.
PANAFEST remains the biggest and largest cultural festival
in Africa, assembling every other year the proud exhibitors
of Africa’s cultural heritage, celebrating their prowess,
experiences and achievements through dance, theatre, music,
film, conversation and other reverential events.
Indeed, PANAFEST has come a long way from its first edition
in 1992 when the long awaited return to the motherland took
on a pilgrimage form. The 1994, 1997 and 1999 editions taught
a big lesson not only organizationally but also spiritually
as more and more peoples of Africa descent decided to relocate
and live permanently on the soil of Africa. The message of
Family Reunion was disseminated far and wide while the energy
of PANAFEST was enforced.
On the occasion, which took place in Tinubu’s home in
Lagos, Oluwafunso disclosed that PANAFEST will berth in Nigeria
in 2011. But before then, there will be a grand launch of
the festival in February 2010 with the theme, “Tourism,
A Viable Vehicle and an Enhancer for Economic Development
in Lagos State”.
“We are here not to discuss oil, banking or telecoms
but tourism because the man we are here to honour today is
an ardent promoter of African culture and lover of tourism.
Tourism has the capacity to create formidable employers of
labour and income earners in the state, that is what PANAFEST
launch in February 2010 and the staging of PANAFEST in Nigeria
in 2011 stand to achieve,” he declares.
In his response, Asiwaju Tinubu regretted that despite its
rich history and proud culture, the contemporary story of
Africa was that of war, famine and hunger; a continent plagued
by sit-tight rulers, at sea on how to actualise and maximise
the huge potentials of their peoples. But he praised the efforts
of the likes of Ghana and South Africa and the stable democracies
that both countries have attained, adding that such was needed
to grow African economies and increase the volume of inter-African
trade, to drive development and prosperity.
He says: “Ghana’s democratic accomplishments,
leading to the historic Barack Obama visit, holds out two
challenges: that Ghana’s laudable democratic achievements
are well and truly applauded by the international community;
and challenging Ghana to sustain that tempo aside from asking
the rest of Africa to toe Ghana’s democratic path.”
Praising Ghana for beaming attention on West Africa, Tinubu
said a truly integrated African economy should start with
the changing of extant laws that lay too much store by artificial
colonial boundaries, adding that it was time Africans moved
freely in Africa to trade and integrate with one another;
but warned that Africa needed to produce more to have things
to sell to one another.
The former governor said he would do his best as grand patron
of PANAFEST Nigeria to push these desirable goals, adding
that there was a lot in African trade, tourism and the environment
to make African economies more competitive and also promote
inter-African trade.
In his own contribution, Mr. Parker-Allotey said that close
African trade would not take off until Nigeria and Ghana played
the role of Germany and France in jump-starting the European
Economic Community ( EEC ), now the European Union (EU).
He declared that current inter-African trade, put at a mere
four per cent, was unacceptable and that growing trade, among
African countries, should be treated as priority by African
governments.
The Consul-General recalled travelling through Europe and
seeing Europeans of different countries moving and trading
freely but regretted the reverse was the case in Africa .
He mentioned a particular case in Southern Africa when a European
had to plead with immigration officials to allow a fellow
African enter that country.
He said the idea of PANAFEST was to celebrate African history
and theatre, drawing attention to the glorious pre-colonial
past, hoping that would trigger an African renaissance that
would lift the African economy from the woods and make it
a worthy global competitor.
Present at the event with the Olufunso twins, Taiwo and Kehinde,
who are PANAFEST ambassadors and coordinators in Nigeria,
were their spouses, who incidentally are also twins, Regina
Ogbodo, PANAFEST Nigeria member, Pastor Taiwo Awosika and
Demola Balogun.
Make
N3 million by Referring a Bullet-proof Car Buyer
Make
N450,000 Online Monthly. Click Here
How to Get Any Woman You Want. Click Here! |
