The Ondo State of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Mrs. Grace Akpabio, has admonished corps members to treat Nigerian cultural diversity with high sense of dignity.
Speaking on the theme ‘Our Culture, Our Pride’ during the Cultural Carnival which peaked the social activities in camp, the State Coordinator said that members of the service corps should strive to project cultural values to the outside world in a manner that people around the globe would be scampering to watch, witness or want to research into them.
“I am not saying you should not blend other cultures with our own but I want to you to preserve, protect and present our cultural values to the outside world as numero uno or nulli secundus.
She reiterated that corps members should not be seen to be promoting alien or borrowed cultures at the expense of the nation’s indigenous ones which made them rare and unique set of people on the surface of the earth.
Akpabio charged the corps members to invest heavily on research into various cultures in the land as that was another gold mine that had been neglected for a very long time.
The NYSC boss who supported ‘Asa Day’ in some states of the federation especially the South-West wanted the corps members to identify more with their roots and stopped being ‘foreigners in their own land’.
The platoons did show case the rich cultural heritage of the heterogeneous entity called Nigeria which started waning with the insatiable craze for foreign acculturation which became more noticeable after the attainment of independence.
The corps members, during the carnival procession and platoon presentation saw the urgent need to go back to the basics so that the coming generations would have something worthwhile to inherit.
