The 2024 Cultural Day celebration of Starfield College, Fagba, Lagos, was an opportunity for the pupils and staff to showcase their different cultures.
The colourful celebration saw the pupils and staff wearing Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Edo and Efik attire, and even presented their different dance steps.
The school also used the opportunity to showcase different traditional cuisine associated with the Igbo, Yoruba, Edo, Hausa and Efik.
Parents were not left out as they adorned traditional attire to the occasion to reflect cultural backgrounds. The cultural day’s theme was “My Culture is Beautiful! What About You?”
The celebration featured cultural dance, debate, choreography, games, presentation of traditional cuisine and a debate by the students themed “6-3-3-4 Education in Nigeria has done more harm than good.”
Director of Studies, Starfield College, Mr. Chris Eigbe, used the occasion to stress the need to pass down diverse cultures and traditions to the next generation to avoid them going into extinction.
According to him, before now, African cultures and traditions were in their natural forms and undiluted. He stated that the cultures moved from their natural state to modernised forms and were greatly influenced by European and other foreign cultures.
His words: “Our cultures were deep and were not mixed. But now, culture has moved progressively to modernised forms. Now, you can see that our culture has mingled with the European way of life. In all aspects of culture, tradition and the food we eat. Now, we eat all types of junk things called fast food, which were alien to African cuisines. Foreign culture has eroded all we do, from food, clothes, dances and music genres that are now predominantly European and American.”
The educationist said that the college would continue to re-orientate the pupils to sustain the existing cultures and traditions of every tribe. Eigbe said the displays and un¬derstandings by the pupils have given the old generation the hope that our cul¬tures would not go into extinction.
The director complained about the threat posed by foreign music to our tra-ditional music and observes that failure to embark on a rescue mission would amount to complete erosion and death of African cultures and traditions.
Eigbe explained that the college instituted the cultural day celebration as an annual programme and a platform to reinvent out cultures and traditions by the students.
He added: “If we continue with that trend, we may forget our cultures, who we are and where we are coming from. So, while we are moderniz¬ing, we must still take a step back and take a look at our culture.
“We are doing this in line with government policy so that our children can remember who they are and where they are from. We will continue to promote it be¬cause an African is an African. An African cannot become a Eu¬ropean person or cannot become an American.
“We can only take elements of their culture into our own without throwing away ours. Our languag¬es must be preserved. That is the fact that we have because most of the public discussions in public life are held in English Language.’’
He advocated that our traditional languages should also be maintained, noting, “that is what you are seeing today. Traditional cuisines must also be preserved for our children to admire, learn to cook and savour. That explains why we are holding the Cultural Day Celebrations. See the enthusiasm and how beautiful our students and their parents looked in the various tra¬ditional attires representing the different cultures and traditions of the entire country. As a school, we are at the forefront of passing these cultures and traditions from generation to generation.’’
“There is no way you can transform an African person to become a European. You can see that the issue of discrimination between the white and the black cannot disappear overnight. It is a century-old issue. So it will continue from where they left it off, where we met them. We must realise that we are Africans as we modernize without forgetting who we are.
The educationist stressed the need for Af¬ricans to rediscover themselves, stating, “much as we admire the Whiteman we must come back to know ourselves and evolve a strategy that will free the black¬man.”
In her remarks, the Prin¬cipal of the college, Mrs. Sara Oyinloye, acknowledged the importance of culture in the food we eat, the mode of greetings at different times of the day and the way we dress and described it as the way of our life as Africans.
The event featured cultural music and dance, debate, chore¬ography, games, presentation of traditional cuisines and a debate themed: “6-3-3-4 Education in Ni¬geria has done more harm than good”.