Mrs Elizabeth Esu, Special Assistant to the Cross River Governor on Culture, has urged Nigerian youths to shun western values and imbibe their culture.
Esu gave the advice on Friday in an interview on the sideline of the ongoing South South Tourism Stakeholders Forum in Calabar.
The theme of the forum is “Use of Digital Technology to Revamp the Tourism and Hospitality Industry Amid COVID-19 and Security Challenges in Nigeria”.
The governor’s aide, who said that Nigerian culture in terms of dancing, dressing, food and languages had been eroded by the western culture, urged the youths not to allow it to die.
“My advice to our youths is that they must learn and know how to do or perform traditional dance, because our younger generation especially students nowadays cannot speak our languages and perform our dance steps.
“There is the need to put a training programme in place to enable them dance our traditional dances and speak our languages.
“Our cultural centre has been training children to know how to dance and speak their local languages. We are still having mind of going to schools to make sure that they know our culture,’’ she said.
Esu said that she led the state cultural group to showcase traditional dresses and dances to demonstrate Nigeria’s unity in diversity.
According to her, the troupe has been producing drama in many occasions to discourage violence and promote national unity. We do this to avoid trouble and killings in the country.
“This shows us that we in Nigeria are all one. There is nothing like I come from here and there.
“These also demonstrate our culture and where every ethnic group comes from. We will continue to showcase our culture because many of our youths don’t know how to do it and we don’t want our culture to die.
“There is the need to prepare ground for our young ones to bring them up so that they can join and see that our culture has come to stay,’’ she said.