'Jews got their enterprise from Ndigbo-Acholonu

Nigerians, greatest people on earth - Acholonu

'Jews got their enterprise from Ndigbo'

Writer Cathrine Acholonu is a professor of History. She has writen several seminal books and executed some landmark scholarly researches, among them her studious trace of the ancestral root of the historic Black American slave, Oladah Equiano, to a kindred in Isseke town, Ihiala, Anambra state. On the contrary, The one time senior special adviser on Culture to former President Olusegun Obasanjo has also worked extensively, on the history of Igbo people and the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade routes. Her most recent book, They Lived Before Adam, digs the veracity  of the notion held in some quarters that the Igbo people hail from the Hebrew race. In the book which won two major awards (the Phillis Wheatley Award for Work that Transcends Culture, Boundary and the Perception and the Flora Nwapa Award for Literary Excellence) at the just ended Harlem Book Fair, held at Schomburg Center, New York, Acholonu advances that Igbo culture actually, gave rise to the Jewish one. She discusses the issue, the book and other issues with EMMANUEL AGOZINO. Excerpts:

In your new book, They Lived Before Adam, you posited that the Jews borrowed from Igbo culture. That sounds interesting. How did you arrive at that position?

Well, Abraham’s story is only 4000 years old. So the only way to explain all the countless cultural and language similarities between the Jews and the Igbos is that the older culture influenced the younger one. Besides Abraham was a Sumerian and our findings were that Sumerians were a Kwa stock to which the Igbo belong. The first inhabitants of Sumer (Mesopotamia) shared every item of culture with our ancestors, as we detailed in our book, so much so that if you found yourself as a Nigerian in ancient Sumer, you would think you were in your native village. You would even drink palm wine and wash you cloth with dudu Osun.

You argument that the Jews may have encountered the Igbos on their arrival at Canaan is intriguing, can you explain?

Canaanites, who were living in Palestine before Abraham came there from Sumer were also a branch of the West African Kwa stock, to which belong the Yoruba, Benin, Igbo, Igala, Ashanti, Akan and many others. When Ham, the ancestor of the Kwa was coming to Africa as directed by Noah, a branch of his Canaanite grand children stayed back in Palestine. Abraham met them there and wanted to exterminate them, but without success. He acquired their mystical culture and language. The language they spoke is very similar to Anambra Igbo dialect because Anambra people were mostly Hamite migrants who together with the Iduu/Oduduwa group came down from the Middle East after a long sojourn in the Nok city that Ham founded in ancient Nigerian Middle Belt. That language is still preserved in Hebrew and in Egyptian native language. In fact all Nigerians are children of Ham. The Northerners are Cushites while the Southerners are mostly Canaanites. And they all mingled together. The only people outside this group are the Forest-dwelling natives who descended from the first people. These were direct descendants of the ancestors of Adam. But they too are related to the rest because the reason Ham came to West Africa to settle was because Adam prophesied (as narrated in The Nag Hammadi Gnostic Gospel) to his son Seth that his descendants will return to Africa, to dwell with the children of his (Adam’s) original ancestors.

The leaders of the Israeli state, the Knesset has never made any official statement on the said Igbo-Jews stuff as it has done with the Ethiopian Jews for instance. How you do see that?

 That’s because they know that there’s no  “Igbo Jewish stuff.” Why would an Igbo want to be a Jew? Is he not content to be Igbo? The Jews are very intelligent people. They got that from the Igbos, and they know it. They will be finding it funny that Igbo people want to be Jews. It is the Jews who should be looking for their ancestry in Igbo land, not vice versa, because they got their enterprise, flay for technological innovations, sharpness of the intellect from their Igbo/Nri/ Nok ancestors.

I tell you, every set of people are gifted in different ways. A country should maximize the gains of each tribe’s capabilities. It is tribalism and Nepotism in high places in Nigeria that is making Igbo people not be ‘the Jews of Nigeria’ – I mean in terms of Science and Technology. Our culture is older than that of the Jews, because historians and linguists say we have been here for at least 6,000 years, while the Jewish genealogy is only 4,000 years old. Our research, however, says we have been here from the very beginning of time.

Nigerians have not forgotten the debate that followed your book, Olaudah Equiano why did you write it?

It was a result of two and half years of field work and library research, which no one has disproved to this day. Of course some people just argue with my findings for argument sake. But no research has proved me wrong till today. Olaudah Equiano, Black Africa’s first autobiographer/historian in English and hero of the Abolition was an indigene of Isseke in Ihiala, local government of Anambra state, Nigeria.

Your other book, The Gram Code of African Adam (2005) also suggests that the biblical Adam may have been an African. This also keeps many wondering how you arrive at your conclusions.

There are ancient stone inscriptions in the forests and farmlands of Cross River State, Nigeria, which have been there thousands of years before any white man came to these lands. We transcribed some of the inscriptions on the stones and found that some of the letters are Egyptian, Some Sumerian, others Indian. This is not possible unless these other writings originated from the Nigerian environment and were dispersed from here to other continents. One of the inscriptions we transcribed gave the Hebrew name of Eve, spoken (according to the Bible) by Adam at the moment Eve was created. That word is Ish-she. We were shocked to hear the Ikom villagers telling us that their ancestors told them that the first mother of mankind lived in their area and that her name was Shi-she. They pointed to the same  monolith with the Ish-she inscription as the monolith dedicated to her. More than that, they told us that she was the first woman to bear a child by pregnancy (just like Eve) and that her first son Mbom, was the being through whom sin and death came into the world (just like Cain)! That was for us the Catch 22.

Do you arrive at this conclusion by oral tradition, archaeological method or how

We employed oral/written traditions of Africa and other continents, linguistic analysis, archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, analysis of symbols and art forms, ancient and lost writings, esoteric literatures of the world, et cetera.

Some people say you are a radical academic, others have one or two issues with you, especially as result of the kind of positions you take in your books. So, who is Catherine Acholonu?

A restless searcher after the hidden truths about ancient Africa. And I dare say, a researcher who is not afraid to reveal her findings no matter how unpopular or controversial. It is the truth that drives us. We have had too much falsehood being bandied-about, concerning Africans and their contributions to human civilizations. I don’t want my children imbibing the mumbo-jumbo stuff I was made to believe in school.

As a scholar of African Studies with deep inquest into Igbo history, what do you think is Igbo problem in Nigeria

 The problem is that too many people are demonizing the Igbo in this country, and that is not good for progress either for the Igbo or of the country. He who holds another down, holds himself down. A jailer is always in jail longer than his inmates, because he has made a job of being in jail. As a matter of fact the Igbo, like all the other tribes, have, each a role that only they can play. If you light a lamp and put it under the bed it will soon burn the bed. If any tribe –Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Efik – is prevented from playing their god-given role, the country will continue to wallow.

Secondly, most leaders of this nation have not been fair to the Igbo. Many of them prefer to do business with the misfits of Igbo society as a means of impoverishing the Igbo leadership.

Thirdly, loses of the Civil War have not been in any way rectified. For example, the Abandoned Property issue which wiped out the fortunes of many leading families in Igbo land was never resolved. The loses incurred in the war was unquantifiable, and people just trudge along trying to make a living in spite of having been utterly devastated by the war. The center has not been holding and no one is doing anything about it. Then, on the spiritual angle, the millions who lost their lives in the war are not being remembered by our leaders in this country or in Igbo land proper. So their souls are still wandering and they are accusing us (Nigerians) before God, crying for vengeance. If we remember them and offer prayers for their forgiveness and their repose, they will allow us to move on. If they don’t move on, we can’t move on. It is not a matter of being in power. There is power that passes power, as we all know. And we all know in this country that if we don’t give honour to the dead, they won't let us rest. So, when shall we give honour to our Civil War Dead?

 Every January 14 (Armed Forces And Remembrance Day) our country remembers the unknown soldiers who died in the war, and church services and prayers are offered for them. When shall we remember the War Victims on the Biafra side, known and unknown? Are they any less human because they fought or died on the losing side?

What happened during your recent visit to the United States where your book was well received?

Our book won two major awards at the Harlem Book Fair, which took place at Schomburg Center, New York: The Phillis Wheatley Award for Work that Transcends Culture, Boundary and Perception and the Flora Nwapa Award for Literary Excellence. We were given a 30-minute slot to talk live, on C-Span Book TV about our findings as published in They Lived Before Adam.

What is your view on Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and other notable Nigerian writers of early generation?

Without doubt those two, with Chris Okigbo, are some of the greatest writers on the planet. Yet, interestingly, as I had said years ago, the greatest Nigerian writer is yet to be published. I am being proved right with the Chimamanda phenomenon. It shows that Nigeria has so much to offer, yet, when you consider the odds a Nigerian has to contend with to be human, you can believe me that Chimamanda is still not our best. Someone said that if she was not living in USA, no matter what she wrote, no one would know. That is very true. So, then, you know what I am talking about. So many Achebes, Soyinkas and Chimamandas have died, unread, unpublished. Nigerians must be the greatest people in the world, and the most enterprising, so then you can imagine the quantum amount of wastage of human resources that our leaders indulge in by giving us directionless leadership. You don’t believe me? God willing, one day I shall demonstrate it to you.

Writers' roam in occultic fantasia

  “The occult fascinates writers, perhaps because writers are temperamentally attuned to the dark, creative urges, the forbidden of the universe” -  Ben Okri

IN Literature, there is a speciality within the genre of creative writing that is dubbed, magical realism. Nigerian born, naturalised British writer, Ben Okri is one of the leading lights in that endeavour.

  In magical realism hidden metaphysical narratives are infused into free-flowing prose through folkloric narratives as is very evident in Okri's, engaging fiction, Famished Road. The award winning novel, published in 1991, dwells on Azoro, an abiku (ogbanje) or spiritual child living in a typical African village. The novel employs a unique style incorporating the spirit world with the real world intermitently. That is why some western authorities in literary studies classify such writtings as magical realism.

  Wole Soyinka. Soyinka's works have been interpreted and reinterpreted by different scholars, layman and even theologians as mythical and mystical. Interestingly, Soynka hardly hides any secret for those who care to learn. The Nobel Laurate is sagacious in his espousal of his beliefs.  He probes deep into the ethos of African mythology. An ample example is such his poem, Abiku. His other works like Ogun Abibiman, Dance of the Forest, The King's Horseman among many others fit into the format.

  Edger Allen Poe, one of the literray figurers that influenced the  development of the short stories format as it is today, wrote the great pieces Ligeia, and The Masque of the Red Death. But his best stories can be read as allegories, in which the narator's disordered mind both project and represent the disdored universe. In The Fall of the House of Usher for instance, the house rpresents the mind, as it does in dreams. The narrator approches the “house” with depression of soul.

  Poe worked a good deal on dreams, nightmares, madness, and illusion. He contributed a lot to present day understanding of such emotional and surreal stages.

  Surreal novelist, Lobsang Rampa, a Tibetian monk who grew up in the Chkpori Lamasery, the Temple of Tebatian medicine. He studied clairvoyance and healing arts. As a young boy, he was reportedly given a special operation. The suggery opened the pineal gland, the so called “third eye” As a result, Rampa was said to be able to see other people's aura and read their minds. That was the story handed out by Rampa's publishers when his book, The Third Eye was released. Rampa's other esoteric books include, Doctor from Lhsa, The Rampa Story, The Cave of the Ancient, Living with Lima, You Forever, Wisdom of the Ancient,The Saffron Robe, Beyond the Tenth, and Cave of the Ancient. All of which read like mystic monographs, transformed to bestsellers.

  French writer, Victtor Hugo, like other gifted men of the pen, was one of the figures whose writing shaped some of the idea of the present day. But recently, a more curious twist has emerged on the source of his inspiration. He was alleged to be the Grand master of the ever underground, Prior of Sion, one of mordern world's very powerful secreet societies. The Prior of Sion is known for its cherveric tradition.And of course, many believed that Hugo wrting was simply the creative reinterpretation of Hermetic philosophies in which lies the deepest occult lores.

  Helen Petrovna Balavstky, the founder of Theosophy, though a gifted writer was one of the most important figures in the establishment of modern occult movements. Her books are numerous they  have influenced major political philosophies as well as helped to shape many people's grasp of theology. For instance, Balavastky book shaped some of the current understanding about UFO's and Astronmy.

  Similarly, L Ron Hubard's writing on dianetics and Scientiology are of literary intrest because the are so typical of their period that the formed the bastion of the teachings of the Church of Sientology. Hubard lived and died in a curious dome that housed the headquarters in the United States of America. Originally a journalist Hubard wrote works that are deeply influenced by occult beliefs.

   The list is of such literary figures is long and replete with outstanding writings, prompting the question why most writers are drawn to esoteric thoughts.But the deeper scholars are drawn to the study, the more they end up without answers, however, one thing remains clear, writers love to roam in the unseen worlds and often, when they return, they come with a lot of knowledge for their readers to chew.

Osogbo art school: From Mbari experiment to global reckoning

'Osogbo art: Progenitor of Nigerian modernism'

From Mbari to global art

OSOGBO art school is known for its creative outputs that rouse the viewer's curiousity. Its history is equally as interesting and phenomenal too. The story  of  its emergence in the early 1960s, as narrated by one of its first generation members, Chief Jimoh Buraimoh, links many families, cities, institutions and professions. 

Buraimoh, one of the adventurous artisan-turned artists that emerged from the series of experimental art workshops to become a globally-recognised celebrities, says Osogbo's current status as an international cultural destination is largely a result of its artworks.

 He noted that though the Osogbo art school originated serendipituously, it has turned out to be the real progenitors of modernism in Nigeria visual arts.

Explaining to Nigerian Compass, Buriamoh (Asoju Oba of Gbodofon, Osogbo) noted that, “the founders (of Osogbo art school) had no idea of the impact or the legacy they would leave behind.” 

The Osogbo art workshop experiment originated form a series of creativity-development excercises in Ibadan, Ede and Osogbo dubbed Mbari Club by its initiator and co-ordinator, Ulli Beier, a German language teacher who was an extra-mural teacher in the then University College, Ibadan. Buraimoh said the Mbari derived its name from the Igbo language expression for open-air display house and can be stretched to mean “club.” But for their case the Mbari was adapted from the Yoruba language expression, 'ti m ba ri yin lati Ibadan ma ba yo' (If I see you at Ibadan, I would be happy). Hence the name 'Mbari Mbayo' Club.

He revealed that it was after a performance at the deceased dramatist Duro Ladipo's centre in Ibadan that the German anthropologist and language teacher, Beier recognised his (Ladipo's) immense creative talent and leadership trait. He therefore encouraged him to convert his popular recreation centre and bar located on the ground floor of his house to Mbari club house.

Buraimoh who worked as a stage designer and electrician with Ladipo informed that the changing of the popular bar to Mbari Mbayo paved the way for the  Ladipo's  National Theater which opened in 1962.  From then onward, Mbari Club (later known as Mbari Mbayo Club) became an important art hub where emerging playwrights, actors, musicians and artists were discovered through regular workshops exhibitions and stage drama performances. The workshops were held in Ibadan (now capital of Oyo state) and in Ladipo's countryhome in his native Osogbo, Osun state. Some of the discovered youngsters neither had any previous idea that they were artistic nor were aware that art was a  profession. Through the down-to-earth regime of exposure by Beier and his former partner Sussane Wenger, and the leadership style of Ladipo the young one discovered their talent and got their voice in the early years of post-Independence Nigeria.

 Buraimoh said Mbari used to be a regular rendezvous spot for artists and writers in university city of Ibadan. “It was not only artists and writers from Ibadan but those from all parts of Nigeria because, as you know, Ibadan being a university town and the second largest city in the country, it actually attracted arts people from all over the places,” he said.

 According to Buraimoh, Beier and Wenger were teaching staff of the University of  Ibadan then, and that brought in the campus community.

Beier and Wenger, Buraimoh informed, had arrived  Nigeria in the 1950's and settled in Osogbo where, apart from their job in the university, they engaged in a lot of community services which involved the culture of the natives. According to him, Beier  pursued a career in contemporary art and drama while Wenger was drawn deeply to the Yoruba traditional religion and its mythlogy. She eventually became so involved in the Yoruba religious practice to the extent that  Beier ultimately divorced her. Hence Wenger got married to a traditional drummer, Lasisi while Beier later married another artist, Georgina Beier who actually conducted the second phase of the experimental art workshop in August 1964 at Osogbo. While the earlier workshops in Ibadan was named Mbari Club, the ones later staged in Osogbo, were named Mbari Mbayo Club.

Buraimoh deems Beier’s contributions to Nigerian and African modern arts of the  20th century, immense.

“He has made a tremendous impact both as a scholar and as a mentor or catalyst for developing contemporary artists and promoting movements in literature, drama and art. His vast accomplishments are difficult to summarise because he touched many areas in the most significant way. He was co-founder of the Mbari at Ibadan in 1961 and Mbari Mbayo in Osogbo in 1962 and he directed theater productions. Later he directed, Iwalewa Haus – an African art centre in Germany.  His anthologies include Art in Nigeria (1960), Contemporary Art in Africa (1968) and Twenty Years of Osogbo Art (1991).  In 1997, he directed the African and Third World Center at the University of Bayreuth in Germany – the first European establishment dedicated to promoting contemporary third world arts,” recounted Buraimoh.

 According to Buraimoh, who has exhibited in some of the most reputable art houses around the globe and executed highly note worthy public art commission, the first group of students that participated in the Mbari workshop conducted by Beier comprised the late Jacob  Afolabi, late Rufus Ogundele, Chief Muraina Oyelami, Yinka Adeyemi, Ademola Onibokuta (aka 'Professor,' a former director of Osun state Council for Arts and Culture), Adebisi Fabunmi, late Tijani Mayakiri Jire and Alake Buraimoh (nee Ajibola).  “As members of the Duro Ladipo National Theater, the group met the challenges very seriously,” he noted. 

 On  the second workshop that was conducted by Georgina Beier in 1964.  Buriamoh informed that well over 30 participants attended - comprising both members of the theater company and others. At the end of that exercise in Osogbo, four major artists: Chief Taiwo Olaniyi (aka Twins Seven Seven), Oyelami, Adebisi Fabunmi and himself emerged from the lot – all who are now internationally renowned studio artists were lads who were doing other things apart art. And none of the had a college study before attending the workshop.

 The veteran artist hinted that it was the perculiar form of orientation in the workshop that woke the hidden creative treasures in them.

 “The system of instruction adopted by Georgina was to make us more independent right from the beginning. We were neither shown any paper nor told what to do. Rather, we were asked to express what was in our minds. She provided us with brown paper, brushes and powder paints that as amateurs, we mixed with water.  At the end of the two-week workshop, Georgina and Beier sorted out the works they thought were good – based on each individual’s approach. The background of our theatrical training and performance experience greatly helped us. Our first expressions of visual art clearly represented interpretations of the music, festivals, choreography and other images of the theater.

“Georgina helped us to understand that we must each discover an individual style in order to make our art authentic. She instilled in us that notion that every one of us must search for his individuality. Twins Seven Seven was the first to develop his own style in pen-on-canvas. Muraina Oyelami used roller-on-cardboard, while Bisi utilized print making. Gradually, I found my style in bead art mosaic,” he appraised. 

 With these discoveries a generation of artists that are destined to lure the world to Osogbo with their creativity was born and the city, now capital of Osun state, got an identity in the art world with its perculiar crop of magical, folksy painters. Asked the overall influence of the school on Osogbo as a city, Buraimoh, the only Osogbo native of the quartet said: “The total effect of the school was not immediately known. Most of the town's people called us “Omo Adunni Olorisa” the children of Adunni, the pagan (Adunni Olorisa was the name most members of the city called Wenger). They believed anybody working with Beier, Ladipo and Susanne Wenger were pagans.  Later, when we started traveling overseas and were gaining international recognition, they started to have a change of mind and became more friendly to us. 

 More so,  due to our increased number of interational and local exhibitions, and the astute works of  Wenger, Osogbo began to attract more visitors; some western scholars came to study the culture of the land and stay for months. This led to the development of Osogbo as a cultural town, giving it an outstanding edge over the neighbouring towns within the south-western region of Nigeria. The arts also influenced politics in Osogbo. In recognition of  Lapido’s work, he was nominated to become the Councilor for Education in 1966.  Twins Seven Seven was elected to a similar post in 1985 and eventhough he is not from Osogbo, he was honoured with chieftaincy titles.  In 1968, Muraina Oyelami was installed as the Eesa of Iragbiji (his native town near Osogbo). Eesa is a high traditional chieftaincy title, second-in-command to the Oba. And over the last 30 years I have been offered chieftaincy titles in eight cities, all of which I rejected.  I later accepted the title of Asoju Oba of Gbodofon in Osogbo that is similar to the vice mayor position in America,” he recalled. Hence, art – modern art blended with traditional art – became interwoven in the culture of the land.

 Buraimoh who went ahead to study fine arts for a diploma of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria also noted that the the city equally began to boom, economically through the exportation of Osogbo art to other parts of the world as more and more younger ones took to the art profession as well as cultural tourism promotion. Researchers, and teeming academic thesis on Osogbo art also emerged in art schools and libraries.

 “Today whenever anybody has a desire to learn about Osogbo art, he or she will consult numerous publications. These publications are the documented works of the various artists who have emerged from Osogbo. After a long time of interaction between the indigenous artists of Osogbo with their outside counterparts and foreign friends and visitors, a characteristic perspective of Osogbo art with better understanding has developed. This development in itself has created an opportunity for both the indigenous artists and their foreign counterparts. It has opened a wide window on Osogbo and individual artists. It is to the extent that countless exhibitions have presented the works of artists from Osogbo to a larger world. The exhibitions have developed such a strong relationship to this art and establishede it as a formidable contemporary African art movement. Significantly, different forms of artworks from different generations of Osogbo art abound in many countries and cities of Europe and America, from London to New York, Baltimore, Washington D. C., Atlanta, North Carolina, Germany, Italy and other places. Many of the artworks have become properties of foreign states and dignitaries. They are the products of cultural exportation from Osogbo. And especially, indelible cultural landmarks for the various artists,” reasoned Buraimoh.

Throwing more light on the Osogbo school of art Buraimoh sort to establish Beier's and Wenger's legacies in their individual compartments. “ Osogbo art school is the brainchild of  Beier while the Sacred Art Movement is the manifestation of the traditional perception and devotion of Susanne Wenger.  While the Osogbo art school produced various artists in Osogbo based on contemporary arts, the Sacred Art Movement was a group of traditional artists with strong belief in the traditional deities and worship. They have used their religious impetus and authority to fashion out artworks related to different Yoruba deities thereby enhancing the values of traditional Yoruba religion. They have equally used their works to beautify and honour the gods and goddesses. This trait is particularly vivid in the production of gigantic monumental sculptures and structures used in the protection of the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove that would have been deforested and desecrated by the religious fanatics in the 1950s and 1960s. However, one important factor is the point that both Ulli Beier and Susanne Wenger have contributed significantly to the growth of art in Osogbo.  They have equally promoted Osogbo arts to the level of acceptance all over the world. It is equally interesting that members of these two groups have metamorphosed into reputable and internationally respected artists who often have relationships with one other. It is a common cultural course in the service of Osogbo land.”

In furtherance of the legacies of Beier and Wenger, members of the art buzz they have created are equally expanding the business and professional frontiers of their field. Buraimoh who runs a remarkablly busy big art studio in the town as well as a chain of successful businesses including the Heritage Hotels, observes: “It is interesting to note that the Osogbo school of art is the foundation of art in Osogbo and beyond. Its influence has gone beyond Osogbo because the first generation of  artists or pioneer students of the school have established in many spheres. In Osogbo it is a common knowledge that galleries exist in almost every street. I, Jimoh Buraimoh, am almost in every part of the town. The galleries are the focus of attention and tourists' destinations. Visitors and lovers of art troop to to Osogbo to see and patronise the displays in the galleries and other cultural centres. The galleries belong to both the pioneers and younger artists in Osogbo. This current effort has led to the establishment of many artists’ organisations such as Coalition of Professional Artists of Osogbo COPA, Artists Co-operative and many others.

This coalition of artists has gone a step further by establishing an Artists Village. Situated at the buffer zone of Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove. With the permission of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the village when completed will have  such facilities as a conference room, central gallery for artists' works, huts for different traditional crafts and indigenous industries like batik making, sculpture, black soap making, gold and silver smiting, blacksmiting among others. The foundation laying of the project was done in August 2006. This is another way of standardising the Osogbo art as well. It is also a way of promoting younger generation of artists,” he said.

He added that the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove which was declred a World Heritage Site in July 2005 is very important to the growth and development of art in Osogbo. “The listing of the Grove has conferred an international status on the site, thereby, once again placing Osogbo on the world map. This has also increased tremendously, the patronage of art in Osogbo. It has refocused the direction and conception of the artists as well as elevated their standards in content and context. The Osun-Osogbo Grove is the venue of the yearly, Osun Osogbo Festival.  A unique festival among the people of Osogbo, it is essentially a celebration of the founding and establishment of the Osogbo kingdom. It is equally a renewal of the spiritual bond between the spiritual community in the sacred forest and the ancestral fathers of Osogbo. This festival has greatly influenced the socio-cultural set up of Osogbo as well as contributed positively to the economic activities of all strata of the people. The Osun Grove is remarkable the only Grove of its size and dimension measuring about 75 hectares of rainforest vegetation in the whole of South-Western Nigeria where traditional Yoruba religion has been kept alive despite interventions from Western civilization. It is a fusion of culture and nature,” he explained.

The Osogbo art school has also rubbed off visibly in the researches and curricullum of neigbouring academic institutions even as it was established as a non-formal institution. It is also magneting other notable government and non-governmental institutions. Buraimoh informed that recently the Ladoke Akintola University (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Oyo state “established its medical school close to the Grove. The import of this is that the Grove and the LAUTECH are now neighbours. If this situation is allowed to grow into a symbiotic relationship between the duo, we may soon have an environment where the youths of the institution will utilize the abundant cultural resources as well as natural heritage of the Grove. Because of the strategic location of Osogbo as the cultural center of the south-west and Yoruba land, another Federal Government cultural organization, the National Gallery of Art  is developing a facility at Osogbo. Its existence will complement the efforts of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments as well as open up more opportunities for artists to develop and exhibit their talents through their works while also boosting the land's culture and tourism economy,” he reasoned.