A world Yoruba centre, the International Centre For Yoruba Arts and Culture, will be opened this April, inside the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, by eminent Yoruba leaders.
The Centre which will be filled with books, documents, artefact, records, art works etc is being put together by the Alaroye Newspapers Group as a one-stop shop where researchers, journalists, writers and members of the general public interested in Yoruba history, arts and culture can approach to source for all materials needed.
Not only this, the Centre will locate lost or forgotten Yoruba historical materials, music and arts, and make same available at the Centre for general usage. It will also digitise and reconstruct historical facts through documentary and films on all subjects relating to the Yoruba people, thereby making search by researchers and others easy, and needed materials ready.
Explaining further, the Publisher of Alaroye Newspapers, Alao Adedayo, has this to say: “Being the largest user of Yoruba language (in print) in the world today, and because of our daily interactions with the language, arts, culture and history of the people, through our newspaper – ALAROYE, we can confirm that there is no one institution in the entire world where researchers, or anyone at all, can stay to conduct and complete works on the history, arts and culture of the Yoruba people.
“And we strongly believe there should be a centre to serve as a one-stop shop, offering old, new, recreated and reconstructed materials for researchers, lecturers, students, authors, journalists and members of the public interested in Yoruba history, arts and culture.
“It is for this we registered the INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR YORUBA ARTS AND CULTURE (INCEYAC) in 2014 and began to equip it with acquired materials. So, for these five years, that has been the main activity.
“Now, we think the Centre is ripe – at least on skeletal services – for use by the public, and to also organise some of its public programmes.” Adedayo concluded.