FESTAC ’77 challenged assault on the black race, say Obasanjo, Mohammed

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo and Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, have commended the vision behind the Festival of African Arts and Culture, held in 1977 (FESTAC ’77), saying it was a challenge to the unmitigated assault visited on the black race through the monstrosity of 400 years of slave trade on Africans across the world and decades of western colo- nialism on the African continent.

Both men made the assertion yesterday in Lagos at the opening of the weeklong 40th-year celebration of FESTAC ’77 at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Lagos.

Obasanjo, whose administration as military head of state oversaw the panAfrican festival that had over 50 countries in attendance, said contrary to the view of most people, FESTAC ’77 was not a fetish festival, “but a display of our culture, which is the totality of the way of life of our people.

“It is important for us to remind the world that they all emanated from Africa. “We should never hold on to the wrong narrative that others have given to Africa, which is a narrative of poverty. As Africans, we endeavour to be part of the world we live in and have a fair share in the world’s division of labour. This is what FESTAC ’77 was all about,” he said.

Mohammed said FESTAC’77 was an unusual forum that brought together in hitherto unimagined dimension the entire black and African countries and communities in a rare show of solidarity and cultural display.

According to him: “It was the desire to challenge and debunk this unsavory and unmitigated assault on the black race, decolonise her mentality and quest for freedom, recognition and equality with other races of the world that necessitated the hosting of the Second World and African Festivals of Arts and Culture. Till date, FESTAC ’77 remains an unqualified success story that witnessed the greatest assemblage of the entire black and African communities.”

While the Director-general, Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC), Ozo Ferdinand Anikwe, said FESTAC ’77 was the singular most important event in world history that championed equality and further gave impetus to the spirit of oneness, brotherhood and pan-african consciousness that brought about the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa, Erelu of Lagos, Abiola Dosumu, noted that after 40 years of the celebration of FESTAC ’77, the black race has continued to record tremendous achievements in all fronts.