Dennis Udoma, Uyo
Permanent Secretary, Bayelsa State Ministry of Culture and Ijaw National Affairs, Barrister (Mrs) Bio Charles Onyenma has commended the Federal Government for organizing this year’s National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST), describing it as an opportunity to showcase the rich traditional cuisines, arts and crafts, drama, drawings and paintings, indigenous pottery and traditional wrestling of the state.
Mrs Onyenma, who was fielding questions from newsmen at the cultural festival held at Ibom Hall Grounds in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital on Thursday said, Bayelsa State was truly prepared for the event in order to key into the federal government’s agriculture policy agenda.
“We are fully prepared and we are here on ground. We are keying in fully because most of our items here are Bayelsa-grown. All we are doing is to improve upon them for export,” she said.
She lamented low awareness on the domestic agricultural produce saying, if government could pay more attention to publicising domestic products, the nation’s indigenous goods could compete favourably well with those ones from other countries.
“The problem is that, the awareness is not there to make people believe that they can make a living out of these things, or improve our economy by exporting them.”
Also, Executive Director in her ministry, Mrs Festus-Lukoh Payeboye, in her views, rated NAFEST high in terms of technicalities saying that, before now, the cultural festival concentrated on display of delicacies from states.
Mrs Payeboye noted that, this year was something different with the display of the local spices from Bayelsa State which according to her, are ready for export in line with the presidential agricultural agenda.
She also noted that the economic downturn in the country has drastically affected participation of the people in this year’s Nafest.