Olabisi Anibaba Emerges Miss Olokun 2024, As Gani Adams Speaks On How Cultural Activities Is Used To Bring Back Lost Glory Of Yoruba Race

Miss Anibaba Fauziyyah Olabisi, a 200-level Student of Lagos State University of Science and Technology(LASUTECH), from Lagos State, has emerged winner of the Miss Olokun 2024 Beauty Pageant.

The event was held on Saturday, 19th October, 2024 at the Oodua House, Ikeja, organized by Oodua Festival Foundation (OFF), featuring Twenty contestants from across southern part of the country and display of music, cultural dance, among others.

Speaking at the event, Aareonakakanfo of Yoruba land, Iba Gani Adams ceased the opportunity to reveal how Olokun Festival Foundation (OFF) has been using cultural promotion activities to bring back the lost glory of the Yoruba race.

Speaking further, Gani Adams warned that failure for people to believe in their identity and culture makes them  inferior to other tribes.

He said the pageant show was quite different from one people normally witnessed anywhere in the country or outside the country, declaring that it was purely a cultural heritage, put together to project, promote and sustain our identity, which he pointed out one could see from the sequence that reflects the Yoruba culture and especially the culture of people of Badagry, the destination of the grand finale of this year’s Olokun Festival as a way of identifying with them.

“This pageant show is quite different from one people normally see in town or in some countries, this is purely cultural heritage. This is the pageant we established to project, promote, and sustain our identity and you can see from the sequence that it reflects the Yoruba culture.

“That is the culture of the destination of the grand finale of Olokun Festival so that we can identify with the Badagry people.

“We are sending the message that we must continue to promote our culture and identify because the new generation has been highly influenced by the Western Culture. And if you don’t know where you are coming from, it will be very difficult to know where you are going.

“If you don’t believe in your identity, if you don’t believe in your culture you will be inferior to other tribes and God did not create any human being to be inferior to others. No culture is even superior or higher than any other culture.

“So what we are doing by establishing the Olokun Festival Foundation is to protect and project our culture to the whole world. We have sustained this for 22 years uninterrupted and anyone that followed us would see that we organized the program in sequence, in different ways, we apply for about 10 programmes within two weeks,” he stated.

The Yoruba generalissimo, however, expressed appreciation to the director of the pageant, headed by Dr. Sunday Ogunsola, and others, saying that they had tried their best with the little resources they had been given to organize a successful event.

Dignitaries at the event include Dr. Bukola Omidina, Director of Administration, Council of Arts and Culture; Madam Kuti Akin Ajayi, Branch Manager, FCMB, Lagos Island; Chief (Barr.) Babajide Tanimowo, Chief Dauda Asikolaye, Chief (Mrs) Esther Oyebola, Amb. Gbenga Onasanya, the entire National Executive Council of Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), and the entire National Coordinating Council of OPC, among others.