A new chapter in the advancement of Yoruba culture, history, tradition and values will open on Tuesday, November 23, as the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, turns the first sod of the Yoruba World Centre (YWC) situated inside the University of Ibadan.
A statement by Director of Media and Publicity of the International Centre for Yoruba Arts And Culture (INCEYAC), Chief Shola Oshunkeye, said Osinbajo will be joined on the occasion by the governors of South West, the Ooni of Ife, Adéyeyè Enitan Ògúnwùsì (Òjájá II), the Alaafin of Oyo, Lamidi Adeyemi III, and many eminent Yoruba leaders.
A brainchild of INCEYAC, the three-in-one occasion, will feature the opening of the centre’s temporary abode, the presentation of a full documentary on YWC, and the laying of the first foundation at the permanent site by the vice president.
When completed, according to Oshunkeye, the YWC will have a standard library; an archive; a museum; a recreation, reconstruction and digital centre; broadcasting and film village; and an artificial forest (Zoo).
Explaining the purpose and significance of the project, a member of INCEYAC Board of Trustees and Publisher of Alaroye newspaper, Alao Adedayo, said the centre will serve as a one-stop shop that offers old, new, recreated and reconstructed materials for researchers, lecturers, students, authors, journalists, historians and the public interested in Yoruba history, arts and culture, as tool for nation building, national cohesion, and mutual understanding.
Adedayo said though the project is an idea whose time has come, he lamented that vibrant and vast as the Yoruba race is, it has “no single institution anywhere in the world where researchers, or anyone at all, can stay to conduct and complete works on the history, arts and culture of the Yoruba people.
“Being the largest user of Yoruba language (in print) in the world today, and because of our daily interactions with the language, arts, culture and history of the people, through our newspaper, ALAROYE, we can confirm there is no such institution in the entire world. In addition to providing a good ambience for researchers, the YWC, as a knowledge centre, will help Nigeria and Nigerians in the onerous task of nation building.”
Adedayo, therefore, urged the Yoruba, at home and in the diaspora, to support the centre.
