All Set for 2019 Ojude Oba Festival… How Globacom Becomes Major Sponsor Event
A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people, observed the great Indian sage and statesman Mahatma Gandhi. How better to celebrate a people’s hearts and soul than to put on a display of cultural excellence that highlights their heritage to the world? The Ojude Oba Festival is the annual cultural showpiece of the Ìjeebú people that puts their rich and variegated cultural history on display for the world to see.
Past events attracted tourists from far and wide to experience the vastness of the Ìjeebú heritage and this year’s edition will be no exception. Though taking its origin from certain Islamic celebrations, the festival has since morphed into a gathering of Ìjeebú sons and daughters of all religious colouration. Christians, Muslims and traditional worshippers spend the week in camaraderie, discarding all segregating affiliations and taking up the one unifying garb of being joint partakers in the common Ìjeebú destiny.
As usual when it comes to events of great significance like this one, the paramount ruler of Ìjeebú land, His Royal Highness, Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona will take centre stage. Since he began to oversee the festival, the respected monarch has transformed what used to be just a local celebration to a unique global brand. Each time the Ojude Oba Festival comes to town, tourists from all over the world converge on Ìjeebú-Ode and environs.
The chairman of this year’s edition billed to run between August 13 and 16 is foremost industrialist and billionaire businessman Sir Kessington Adebukunola Adebutu, founder of Premier Lotto popularly known as Baba Ìjeebú. The event has long served as the annual homecoming for illustrious sons and daughters of the soil who troop back to their ancestral home in their droves to reconnect with their heritage.
As is expected for an event of this magnitude, sponsors are already falling over themselves to be associated with the festival. But none has pride of place like Globacom, Nigeria’s indigenous telecoms company owned by Nigeria’s second-richest man Otunba Mike Adenuga Jnr. What many don’t know that Adenuga is a proud Ìjeebú man and a close ally of the Awujale.
The two share both fellow feeling and ancestral blood. No wonder the wealthy Apesin Of Ijebuland is always willing to support the Ojude Oba Festival no matter what it takes. Glo has been sponsoring the event for a decade and this year is upping its efforts with cash prizes and other gifts on offer to lucky Indigenes.