Expert Emphasises Benefits Of Celebrating Culture

Culture adept Edi Lawani has highlighted the benefits of celebrating civilization successful Nigeria’s developmental travel and its tourism potential.

Lawani, who is the manager of Órüpézá Festival, made the remark successful a connection yesterday successful Lagos to unveil Freedom Party Week 2025.

According to him, celebrating civilization is investing successful Nigeria’s future.

The taste enthusiast, who noted the request to physique connected taste tourism’s legacy, said festivals remained germane not lone to preserving heritages but besides to boosting tourism and the economy.

“As Nigeria grapples with questions of taste diplomacy and brushed power, Órüpézá Festival whitethorn good beryllium showing the way.

“Festivals are much than fleeting moments of spectacle; they are taste testaments to memory, identity, and aspiration,” helium said.

Lawani said that Freedom Party Week 2025, billed to clasp betwixt September 28 and October 1, would presumption Lagos arsenic a hub wherever practice and modern look conscionable successful robust dialogue.

He recalled that the 2024 variation transformed Freedom Park into a kaleidoscope of sound, colour, and conversation.

He added: “With much than 15,000 participants, it affirmed the festival’s increasing stature arsenic a taste marketplace wherever contented embraces innovation.

“Beyond the music, creation exhibitions and culinary journeys, the 2024 outing underscored a broader truth—that festivals are not specified diversions but engines of taste diplomacy and tourism, shaping however communities spot themselves and however the satellite sees them.”

According to him, the prime of Freedom Park arsenic the anchor venue is affluent successful symbolism.

Lawani said: “Once a assemblage prison, the tract has evolved into a sanctuary for representation and creativity, a surviving metaphor of transformation.

“For the festival organisers, this concern is nary coincidence. “Órüpézá Festival embodies the precise tone of Freedom Park—transforming past into a gathering constituent for resilience, freedom, and identity.”

He said that what distinguished Órüpézá remained its committedness to taste freedom—” a curatorial ethos that refuses to dainty practice arsenic static”.

According to him, instead, Órüpézá insists that contented tin creation with the modern and that past tin animate modern expression.

“This year’s Freedom Party Week volition diagnostic taste parades, manner showcases, unrecorded concerts, movie screenings, intelligence panels, and a curated marketplace of artisans and culinary innovators.

“Órüpézá is not conscionable a festival; it is simply a reclamation of narratives, an assertion that African civilization is dynamic, youthful, and globally resonant.

“Freedom Party Week 2025 deepens that vision—inviting communities to celebrate, question, and reimagine civilization together,” helium said.

According to Lawani, projections suggest that attendance astatine the Órüpézá 2025 Festival whitethorn transcend 20,000 visitors, from section enthusiasts to planetary tourists.

“For Lagos, it is some an economical accidental and a taste calling card—reinforcing the city’s estimation arsenic a originative capital.

“For the public, it is simply a reminder that festivals stay a signifier wherever individuality is negotiated and state is performed,” helium added. (NAN)