… state targets worldwide market for arts, crafts
By Adeola Badru
The Oyo State Government has actually stated its decision to move beyond reliance on traditional sources of earnings by utilizing the financial capacity of arts, crafts, cultural celebrations, and tourist to create forex, draw in worldwide financial investments, and produce job opportunity.
The federal government stated it was working to change Nigeria’s abundant cultural heritage into commercially practical items for the international export market, placing the imaginative economy as a significant motorist of financial development and sustainable advancement.
The effort, which looked for to open the massive financial worth of native creative expressions, conventional understanding, and cultural possessions, will be driven through the Oyo State Business Forum 2026, with the style “Investment and Export Promotion of Arts and Crafts Business in Oyo State.”
The online forum is anticipated to combine financiers, artists, artisans, exporters, policymakers, and advancement partners to check out financial investment chances, reinforce export capability, and broaden the global market for Nigerian arts and crafts.
Speaking at a press rundown to reveal the online forum, the Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Dr. Wasiu Olatubosun, stated the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde was intentionally rearranging culture beyond its conventional function as a custodian of heritage to end up being an efficient financial sector efficient in creating wealth, drawing in financial investments, and contributing meaningfully to nationwide advancement.
Olatubosun, who spoke at the rundown arranged in partnership with the Oyo State Investment and Public-Private Partnership Agency (OYSIPA) at the state Secretariat, Ibadan, explained Nigeria’s cultural wealth as a huge however mostly untapped financial resource that might complete positively in the worldwide market.
He preserved that conventional celebrations, native understanding, creative expressions, and in your area produced crafts had significant business worth and might end up being significant export products if correctly looked into, recorded, established, and marketed.
According to him, the state federal government is likewise rearranging its cultural celebrations from regular yearly events into worldwide competitive tourist and home entertainment items efficient in drawing in foreign visitors, financiers, and members of the African diaspora.
He recognized the current engraving of the Sango Festival on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a significant increase to Oyo State’s global cultural standing and a chance to bring in higher worldwide attention.
The commissioner discussed that the acknowledgment had actually taken the yearly celebration in Oyo Town beyond its standard geographical and cultural limits, making it a progressively appealing location for worldwide travelers, cultural lovers, and media companies from Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
He included that the Sango Festival had actually signed up with the Osun-Osogbo Festival as one of the 2 celebrations in Southwest Nigeria with UNESCO acknowledgment.
Olatubosun likewise highlighted the growing worldwide appeal of the World Egungun Festival, which was repackaged in 2024 as a tourist and home entertainment item to expand its financial worth and bring in a broader worldwide audience.
He stated the celebration had actually tape-recorded impressive development in presence, with increasing involvement from outdoors Oyo State and growing interest from nations with strong historic and cultural connections to Yoruba heritage, especially Brazil, Cuba, and Trinidad and Tobago.
“When we began in 2024, we taped in between 6,000 and 7,000 guests. In 2025, participation grew to over 17,000, while this year we invited more than 19,000 visitors, with over 50 percent originating from outdoors Oyo State,” he stated.
The commissioner even more revealed that a preliminary group of 25 foreign visitors thinking about standard initiation rites was anticipated in the state later on this year, explaining the advancement as another chance to promote financial activities and increase foreign currency inflows.
“They might not be spending for initiation, however they will invest their dollars here. Those resources will distribute within our economy. That is the financial worth of culture,” he included.
Beyond cultural celebrations and tourist, Olatubosun stated the federal government was taking intentional actions to reinforce the industrial structures of the innovative market through research study, paperwork, global collaborations, and enhanced access to export markets.
He divulged that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was teaming up with the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, to record the state’s cultural properties while likewise engaging the Office of the Special Adviser on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to help with access to global markets for regional innovative business owners.
He discussed that the effort was meant to make sure that native artists, craftsmens, and cultural business owners were not restricted to regional patronage however were sufficiently placed to contend in the broadening international market for African arts and crafts.
Speaking, the Director-General of OYSIPA, Mr Tilewa Folami, represented by the Director of Public-Private Partnerships, Mr Adebisi Ajayi, stated the organization online forum was developed to display financial investment chances in the state’s arts and crafts market and motivate higher private-sector involvement.
He stated the federal government was looking for financiers going to check out the huge chances in the sector through tactical collaborations, institutional assistance, and a making it possible for service environment.
“Our goal is to draw in financiers into the arts and crafts market and promote service activities in the state.”
“We desire financiers to utilize the chances offered through federal government assistance, collaborations, and a favorable service environment,” he stated.
In his contribution to the online forum, Mr. Lawal Akolade, the expert, determined insufficient research study, bad documents, and the lack of appropriate assessment of cultural resources as a few of the significant barriers avoiding Nigeria’s innovative market from recognizing its complete financial capacity.
He argued that the arts and cultural market might make a substantially higher contribution to the nationwide economy if its industrial chances were appropriately determined, recorded, established, and exposed to the worldwide market.
“The market for arts and culture in Oyo State is practically endless. We can not completely measure its worth till we effectively check out and record the chances within the sector,” Akolade stated.
He kept in mind that countless native craftsmens, consisting of carvers, carvers, and weavers, were currently adding to a market with significant worldwide need, observing that conventional Nigerian artifacts and creative works were shown in museums throughout Europe.
Speaking, prominent visual artist and cultural ambassador, Chief Tunde Odunlade, stated Nigeria’s imaginative market had a distinct export benefit that identified it from numerous other sectors of the economy.
Odunlade, who has actually practiced in New York for more than 50 years, explained art and culture as Nigeria’s just real completed export, arguing that, unlike petroleum and other basic materials, which are exported for processing abroad before being offered back to the nation at greater costs, creative items leave Nigeria as completed products.
“If they take our petroleum, they improve it abroad and offer it back to us at a greater rate. Art leaves this nation as an ended up item,” he stated.
He explained Oyo as the cradle of modern Nigerian art and required increased financial investment in culture, tourist, and the imaginative economy to make it possible for native artists and artisans to take full advantage of the chances offered in the global market.
The federal government, nevertheless, kept that the proposed company online forum would offer a platform for linking regional imaginative skills with financiers, export chances, and worldwide markets as part of efforts to open the financial worth of Oyo State’s cultural heritage.
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