The National Publicity Secretary, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Mr Bernard Akoma, on Friday called on?the Federal Government to evolve a comprehensive cultural policy to foster development.
Akoma, who?made the call in an interview with the News Agency Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja,?said that evolving a comprehensive cultural policy would promote national integration and make the nation to exploit the full potential of its vast and diverse culture.
Akoma argued that it was wrong to define Nigeria’s culture from ethnic perspectives, saying that Nigerians should be working to promote national culture rather than “Igbo culture, Hausa culture, Bini culture, Yoruba culture etc.
The APGA scribe said that Nigeria needed to promote a cultural policy that would ensure national integration and make Nigerians to see themselves as having one nation and one destiny.
He said that it was painful that Nigeria as a nation did not have a cultural identity to showcase to the world, citing some West African countries, including Ghana that had been promoting their cultures through their dress codes.
“You can easily identify a Ghanaian through the `kente’ attire. I wish that Nigerians can adopt such dress codes that can easily help to identify us proudly as Nigerians anywhere in the world,’’ he stated.
Akoma said that government needed to use culture to drive its transformation, noting that adopting such an idea would bring unprecedented benefit to the country in the years ahead.
The party stalwart said that Nigerians should join hands with government to promote policies that would ensure national integration to make the country sustain its position as the “giant of Africa.’’
He noted that Nigerians were still leaning toward their geographical area , saying that the situation had often promoted discord and crisis.
Akoma called on Nigerians to see each other as one “since destiny has brought us together as one and there is no other country we can call our own.’’ (NAN)