Osun Osogbo festival: Ataoja, other Yoruba dignitaries tackle misconceptions

Activities marking this year’s Osun Osogbo festival commenced on Saturday with a walk carnival procession by dignitaries and other stakeholders in the festival. YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE reports that this is the first time the festival will commence with a walk in a bid to correct false impressions that the spirit of the Osun deity had been stolen.

As efforts to take the Osun Osogbo festival to the next level without eroding the cultural significance continues, the festivities commenced this year with a new programme- a walk-a carnival procession with dignitaries, government functionaries, cultural icons as well as various stakeholders going round Osogbo to create awareness that the programme has commenced.

The introduction of the walk, however, has not distorted the traditional activities that go  with the festival walk as all traditional rites will still held as expected. The traditional pre-festival activities that are synonymous with the programme are still lined up as scheduled to commence with the traditional cleaning of the city (Iwopopo) on August 5 and the lighting of the mystic 16 points lamp on August 8, while the festival activities would commence on Monday, August 12 with the assemblage of crowns (Iboriade).

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Also, the Arugba Berth ceremony  will be held on August 13, the same day that tourists would have the opportunity of touring the cultural and historical sites in the state and the native ayo game, football competition final, arts and crafts fair and children’s fiesta at the palace pavilion on August 14, with the Ataoja’s Chieftaincy Coronation and Osun Festival Tourism forum rounding off the programme on Thursday, August 15.

The festival grand procession to Osun grove would be held on Friday, August 16 and there would also be an all-white party and award night afterwards, completing the normal circle of the annual festival.

The Ataoja of Osogbo, Oba Jimoh Oyetunji reiterated that the walk is in no way meant to interfere with the culture and heritage of the festival, but to further promote the significance of Osun to the life of Osogbo in terms of protection and the positive things the Osun Osogbo goddess had bestowed on Osogbo land.

According to him, the walk has become necessary in view of the internal upheavals and security challenges currently facing the country as the festival is a unifying factor for peaceful cohabitation among all the ethnic nationalities in the state.

Speaking on the significance of the walk, Oba Oyetunji stated that, “usually, the celebration of Osun Osogbo festival commences by the cleaning of the town called iwopopo whereby citizens of Osogbo and tourists gather to do the task. But this one is a special occasion, special in the sense that it is also awareness to the public that the alleged stolen spirit of Osun is fallacy, Osun remains in its abode and we have been telling people this for long time. That is why we are starting this year’s own with Walk For Osun, where everyone regardless of the ethnic group, now comes to me and we move round Osogbo to tell people that Osun remains where she is in her abode.

“Osun Osogbo has been taken as a very significant festival. There is the involvement of UNESCO, which has made the site world heritage one. This places Osun Osogbo on the world map as a tourism destination and the federal, state and local governments have shown enthusiasm in promoting Osun Festival. The state government is nearer to me than the local government, to be precise. What we are celebrating here is not only done by the Ataoja and his people but in collaboration with the state government of Osun and they have been upright,” the Ataoja stated.

Also speaking during the walk, the supervisor in charge of the Home Affairs, Culture and Tourism Ministry, Dr Obawale Adebisi stated that, “by our records, it has shown that the festival attracts different people in the diaspora which is on yearly basis. The government brought a new tourist product  ‘Karele Odua’; The purpose is to bring the Yoruba in the diaspora to Yoruba land so that they will come home and know their sources.

“We have them in Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago and they want to come home. Our effort is to plan strategically to bring them home on annual basis between August 10 – 21 during the celebration of the Osun Osogbo Festival. It will enhance the quality of Osun Osogbo and bring in more to partake. We are making efforts; my governor said at inception that he wanted to drive the state’s economy with tourism and he designed a new policy that will continue to bring people here yearly.  I was in Brazil about two weeks ago to sensitise them to the programme and I had a rewarding visit, so I want to assure you that in a few weeks or month we will be seeing the results.

“The state government takes active part in Osun Osogbo Festival. See what we are doing today, it is to ensure that we give necessary support to the community and we also get maximum support in return for government programmes and policies. The festival every year brings about millions of naira to Nigeria. Though not directly to the purse of the state government, we are planning on capturing more data and register participants so that it can bring in more and more funds.  That is why the governor said we are driving the state’s economy with tourism as from next year,” he concluded.

On his part, the Managing Consultant of Esquire Global, the organisation saddled with the responsibility of planning the festival, Mr. Toye Arulogun, while speaking on what they are planning for Osun Osogbo which is an age long festival, said , “I think our gathering here as to show the difference that we are trying to make, first of all let us understand what the festival is all about, there is something that is important which is the myth and mystery but we have to make the festival more contemporary and that is what we are bringing on board, we will see that today a number of people walked with us to herald the Osun Osogbo festival, the walk signifies peace and unity between different ethnic groups, what we are bringing in is an element of contemporary as we can’t do much about the tradition.

“The second thing is in terms of coordination, we are planning on working with a good event manager that would ensure that people can have a good time. We are expecting a lot of people so that the people who want to partner with us will have benefit from the partnership. So  this is the type of thing we are bringing on board, there’s nothing much we can do about the tradition but the ambiance and environment we can do a lot so they can go through international direction.”

Speaking about insecurity, Arulogun stated that, “we reassure people that the insecurity is not as bad as it is painted. You are here, you travelled from somewhere to this place. You can see all the check points on the road and FERMA is also working on the road so that bad roads will not be an instrument by the evil doers and also in the state itself, we have had several meetings with the security agencies so that we can create tight security, it is not as bad as it is being painted. I can tell you that most of the hotels are fully booked for the festival.”

Hundreds participated in the walk which attracted people from various walks of life and Osun worshippers in droves.