Culture on display at 11th Ofala Festival

This year’s Ofala Festival began with a huge start yesterday with an International Art Exhibition at the hall of the Ime Obi, the Onitsha Royal Palace, Onitsha, Anambra State. This is the first time an art exhibition is holding in the history of the festival, and it is the 11th Ofala festival during the tenure of the current Obi of Onitsha, Nnaemeka Achebe, Agbogidi.

The festival is sponsored by national telecommunications operator, Globacom.  

‎The exhibition is anchored by the popular curator, Geroge Edozie, who co-authored the seminal book titled 101 Contemporary Arts and it is being attended by who is who in the Nigerian creative art world and arts collectors.

Prof Bruce Onobrakpeya, one of the leading artists in Africa, who declared the exhibition open, said that the essence of the exhibition tagged Oreze, which literarily means the King's Crowd, was to create exposure for visual arts in the country and Africa as a whole.

"This is signalling a new dawn - a renaissance of royal patronage which in the past was the bedrock of our timeless art treasures envied all over the world. These works, now all over the world in leading museums and in the hands of private collectors, constitute a rich repertoire of our cultural values that are the bedrock of modern art practice in Nigeria and abroad," he noted.

He commended the Obi of Onitsha for initiating the idea that art exhibition should be part of the yearly Ofala festival, adding that the Onitsha Monarch "is not just a patron, he is an avid art collector determined to make Onitsha once more an important centre of the arts."

In his goodwill message to the exhibition, the Chairman of Globacom, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jnr, GCON, said that in demonstration of the company's resolve to support the cultural heritage of the Onitsha people as exemplified by Ofala Festival, "we are kicking off this year's festival with an international art exhibition that will feature over fifty artists drawn from Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Republic of Benin and the Diaspora."

"We are determined more than ever before to add value to the Ofala festival and transform its contents so that the entire Ndigbo at home and in the Diaspora, will be proud of their cultural heritage embedded in this age-long festival," Dr. Adenuga added.

Dignitaries that graced the opening ceremony of the exhibition included palace chiefs, the Ozoma of Onitsha, Dr. Amaechi Obiora of Eko Hospital, who was the father of the day, Chief Mrs. Elizabeth Jibunoh, who led the Onitsha Professional Ladies Circle, the Director General of the National Gallery of Arts, Alhaji Abdulahi Sabo Muku and a host of others.

The Oreze Art Exhibition featured 53 artists from within and outside Nigeria, among whom were 12 Onitsha artists, three from Ghana, two from Republic of Benin and some from Togo. The exhibition closes on Friday, October 11.