The National Youth Service Corps Oyo State Coordinator , Comrade Odoba Abel Oche has
asserted that our culture is our future and that NYSC has continued to promote the culture of our dear nation, Nigeria. He said the NYSC also included the Cultural Carnival in the course content to showcase the rich cultural values of all the constituents that made up the entity called Nigeria.
The Coordinator made the assertion while declaring open the Cultural Carnival for the 2023 Batch’C’ Stream 2 Orientation Course held at the NYSC Permanent Camp, Iseyin.
Odoba stated that during the Cultural Carnival Day, Corps members are encouraged to display a mixture of the country’s culture through music, dance, drama and other artistic creativities among the Corps members to change their mindset about the different religions and ethnic groups in the country. He said the different dance steps and costumes portraying various cultural heritage is not a mere entertainment but an avenue to make them cherish the culture of others and most especially spur them to preserve it from going into extinction.
He stressed that one of the objectives of the NYSC is to develop common ties among the Nigerian youths and promote national unity and integration.He stated further that every Nigerian graduate mobilized for the national service is being exposed to different tribal groups and cultures to learn about other people’s culture by their experience on Camp through the Carnival day programme.
SC equally urged the Corps members to be proud of their culture and show the world that they have a culture and be good representation of their origin by their attitudes and behaviours. He also charged them to imbibe all they have learnt during the Orientation Course.
In his welcome address, the Head of Social on Camp, Mr. Deji Lasaki commended the Cooperation of the Corps members with their platoon Inspectors and for their creativity which made the event colorful and lively.
Each platoon displayed different cultures and costumes for the Interplatoon cultural competition and were assessed by the panel of judges based on proper representation of the culture and creativity in their performances.
At the end, number 4 platoon who displayed the Yoruba culture emerged the winner of the Competition with 135 points, number 10 platoon with Gbagi culture came second with 134.5 points and number 6 platoon came third with 130 points representing Ijaw culture.
