By Yemi Kolapo
On Saturday, thousands of sons and daughters of Egbaland converged on the Ake Palace Pavilion for the grand finale of the 39th Lisabi Festival, an annual week-long festival, originally conceived to honour the celebrated 18th-century warrior, Lisabi Agbongbo Akala, who led the efforts that secured independence for the Egba people.
Though the annual festival has been documented as a week-long event, this year’s edition, themed “Integrating Apprenticeship Training and Education: Opportunities and Challenges”, started on March 16 with a press conference at the Ake Palace Auditorium. By March 23, vehicles could hardly find parking spots at the Itoku Market, considered the major hub for adire (tie and dye) textile in Nigeria and Africa.
Many international tourists and Egba indigenes in the Diaspora, who flew in from across the globe to witness what turned out to be one of the best trend-setting, ‘cultural roots’ gatherings in recent times, seized the opportunity of being in the historic city of Abeokuta to get cheap and unique Adire deals from the source.
Many fashion designers could hardly take last-minute orders, owing to a backlog of pending deliveries, especially since the Eid el-Fitr celebration was only a week before the grand finale of the Lisabi Festival. To appreciate how busy tailors would have been for some weeks in the Gateway State capital, it is important to note that Abeokuta is divided into four main sections – Egba Alake, Owu, Gbagura and Oke Ona, under which there are more than 60 towns and villages. Each of these towns, in addition to different age grades, chieftaincy categories, traditional and social groups, are usually identified at the arena with distinct traditional attire, adorned in a uniform way to give that unique view of healthy competition and glamour amid palpable unity. More than 70 per cent of those outfits were made in Abeokuta.
This year, more friends of the Egba people, from all parts of Nigeria, were part of the celebrations, having monitored the success of the 38th festival, particularly on social media platforms. Hotel booking became a herculean task one week before the main day, as many hotels were fully booked. Printers also worked, non-stop, to meet the huge printing demands of the season.
As early as 10am, it was already very difficult to drive close to the main venue. Vehicular movement was restrained by a surge of indigenes of different towns trooping towards the pavilion, many of them on beautifully decorated horses.
The crowd was unprecedented! We had to trek some miles, running intermittently, to keep pace with others in the team. I enjoyed every bit of the stress, but couldn’t get used to the repeated celebratory gunshots by locals. Even after the main celebration at the pavilion, major roads were blocked as towns and social groups organised separate parties in major halls across the city and on the streets.
Last year, many people could not stop talking about how the Lisabi Festival had evolved into a world-class event with many side attractions that seized people’s attention, as well as the “Egbaliganza” slant that served as the icing on the cake. I could not partake in the 38th festival for unavoidable reasons. But after my experience on Saturday, I can confidently say that Abeokuta is on its way to being a major contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product through tourism revenue if all major economic plugs associated with the annual festival are efficiently harnessed.
From the picture of activities painted conservatively above, it does not take an economist to appreciate the impact of the value chain of the annual event on the economies of the immediate community and the state at large. From planning to vendor sourcing, event delivery and full community participation, job creation is given, and the ripple effects can only be favourable.
This is why experts have continued to call on governments at different levels to pay more than a passing attention to growing the tourism industry. With 36 states and over 370 ethnic groups, Nigeria’s tourism assets are numerous, while its diversity and rich cultural heritage are reflected in the over 1,000 annual festivals across the nation, which can be leveraged for effective economic diversification.
Dubai deliberately built sound infrastructure that has made tourism a major economic driver, with the sector contributing about 20 per cent to GDP and the Emirate hosting a record 19.59 million visitors in 2025, a five per cent increase over the preceding year’s figure. This made 2025 the third consecutive year of record-setting tourism, according to the Government of Dubai Media Office.
It is disturbing that tourism contributes nearly 10 per cent to global GDP but accounts for less than four per cent of Nigeria’s economy despite being home to two United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s World Heritage Sites – the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove and the Sukur Cultural Landscape.
That is not all. Nigeria still has 14 additional sites on UNESCO’s tentative list. But who is making real efforts to turn these resources into a fortune for Nigerians in a sector that employs about 1.91 million people annually?
Aside from our Lisabi Festival that I’ve grown so proud of, and the Ojude-Oba Festival in Ijebu Ode (both in Ogun State), Nigerians celebrate the annual month-long Calabar Festival in Cross River, the popular Eyo Festival in Lagos, the New Yam Festival in Abia, Afiaolu Festival in Anambra, Argungu Fishing Festival in Kebbi, the Global Kanuri Cultural Festival in Borno, and colourful Durbar festivals in Bauchi and Kano, among hundreds of other carnivals that are very important to ethnic groups from the respective states.
Yet, despite the money-spinning potential of these festivals that can, through deliberate efforts, become great world tourist attractions, Nigeria still lags behind smaller African countries like Sao Tome and Principe, Rwanda, Tanzania, The Gambia, Seychelles, and Mauritius, among others, in tourism export income.
The National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Act, enacted towards the end of late President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, was mainly to equip tourism industry practitioners for evolving demands, and to maximise the sector’s economic benefits, among other objectives aimed at increasing the contribution of the sector to the nation’s GDP.
Though the current All Progressives Congress administration has not abandoned this act, there is nothing on the ground to show that the drivers in charge at NIHOTOUR understand the act establishing the agency, let alone what economic diversification through tourism entails.
In the little time left for this administration, President Bola Tinubu needs to revisit this act and, if possible, reassess the capacity and exposure of those saddled with implementation responsibility. There are enormous benefits begging to be tapped.
No one needs to also tell a proactive state governor that, instead of looking for what is not lost in the name of delivering the dividends of democracy to citizens, creating revenue by leveraging the cultural heritage of the state through tourism is a visible way of measuring impact.
Away from the economic tilt to the just concluded Lisabi Festival that triggered this piece, one thing that has been established is that amid religious, political and ethnic differences, citizens unite effortlessly and happily to celebrate historic events and national milestones. There is usually some kind of unexplained momentary veil on all forms of worry during these periods that allows an atmosphere of joy despite widespread poverty.
While I would, at this juncture, leave Nigerian leaders with the task of finding viable ways of exploiting this lead, I want to specially congratulate His Royal Majesty, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, and the organisers of the 39th Lisabi Festival for a very successful outing.
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