By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The Director General, National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Otunba Runsewe, has shared some tactics on cultural security and strategy to Zimbabwe National Defense University.
He said the strategy is to help them promote and preserve their culture.
Runsewe made the disclosure during a courtesy call by Zimbabwean team who were on a military course training in Nigeria.
On how Nigeria’s culture has impacted national security, Runsewe said it took the government’s strategy through sports and culture, in particular the latter through the establishment of the annual National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST), FESTAC 1977, post the nation’s civil war to ensure unity.
Nigeria, he said, also educates her citizens on the negative effects of crisis, which include foreign capital and investment flights, which leads to loss of jobs.
The Director General gave more sight on how Nigeria has preserved her cultures year to years in the face of western culture invasions, he explained said Nigeria’s culture is its brand identity, one that its citizens carry around everywhere in world .
“We have tried to use the Nigerian culture to sell our image and to keep our heritage. Our culture is our selling point because our cultural content is our brand identity which our tourism will sell to the world.
“There is a mistake in Africa I am trying to change. And that is that every human is creative, but we have not understood that. Every day we talk about formal education PhD, MSc, LLB etc.; but someone can be creative enough to produce an art or crafts work and make money from it.”, he said .
He stated that “What we are doing in Nigeria is that within the 36 states and the FCT, we have set up a skills acquisition programme in every state. Every state must be able to show their strength”.
“As a council we done what we call global Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis, we looked at the strength of each state, put them forward, and develop those advantages to foster the art and heritage of the culture,” Runsewe said.
Speaking at the event, head of the Zimbabwean delegate, Brigadier General Tendai Darutwe, said Zimbabwe and Nigeria have always enjoyed good relations since before Zimbabwe’s war of liberation before 1980.
“Our relations have remained strong till today”.
