THE Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, has unveiled a new logo for the Olojo festival. This is part of the efforts to re-package the Olojo festival and make it a spectacle capable of attracting tourists from all over the world.The Ooni gave the nod to Infogem Limited as the festival consultant and marketers. The Ooni said Nigeria is rich in culture and as a people, Nigerians must make efforts to preserve and exhibit their culture.He said:Our culture is stronger than our religion. If you look at a typical Yoruba man, either Christian or a Muslim, when it comes to culture, he puts religion aside. Our culture is stronger than religion.He spoke further: I went to the United States of America with some traditional rulers a couple of months ago. We were warmly welcomed because of the richness in our culture and heritage. What they said was that most of our leaders had been coming, but nobody had portrayed our culture like we did. It is very important for us to show the richness of our culture and heritage because our culture is symbolic to us.Our culture is linked to nature. That is the reason we need to portray it the more. That is the only way development can be fostered. That is the only way this country can be properly developed. If you go to every part in this country, irrespective of our diversity, and you look at the source, the depth of our culture, you realize that we need to uphold it for it not to go away.We need to keep it alive. I will give you another good example. In the northern part of the country, we have Muslims mostly. But if we are talking about the culture of the Hausa and Fulani, they put religion aside. Religion stays, but culture is stronger . So, my advice is that we should redefine and rebrand our culture and tradition. That is the only way development can be fostered.Ooni has done three key things to position Ile Ife as a tourist destination in the last one year.He said: For a place to develop as a destination, hotels must spring up. The visitors would also buy consumables from the hotels.The government can focus on taxes. What I am saying is that the resort is linked to movement . On a daily basis, this palace hosts an average on two to three thousand people and it is increasing. So, every weekend in Ile-Ife now, all the hotels are very busy. Gradually, what we now want to do is clean the city, make sure the environment is neat. So, it is part of our initiative. Unveiling the logo again, Olojo attracts crowd, and the crowd is running into millions, from 500,000 and above. So, the statistics have not been there, but this year, we are going to take the statistics. After that, we will now create a proper environment. When people move to place, that is when they see potential , if they need to invest in agriculture. The movement that drives people first is tourism and I think we should focus on that. Unveiling the logo is linked to the tourist centre we are building, and every other thing we are doing.ACThe post Ooni unveils new Olojo logo appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.]]>
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