Activities
of Zomachi Arts, Culture and Tourism Network Badagri (ZACTnet)
Preamble:
Explorers
and adventurers of the past are responsible for our today’s development because
of their discoveries. These explorers of
the past are what we call Tourists today.
A
typical Tourist is a potential investor that gives birth to economic
empowerment, anywhere he or she goes.
Badagry
in Lagos State of Nigeria has some of the world greatest historical, cultural,
and tourist sites, and Lagos State with its cosmopolitan status, whilst being
one of the world’s most populated capital cities, and in view of a large
diplomatic community, home to oil industries, seat of financial institutions,
and a host of small and medium scale industries, has great tourism
potentialities with its abundant economic viability.
Badagry
has several historical, cultural and tourist sites, avalanche of beautiful
beaches, a rich land suitable for revenue generation.
Badagry
is one of the most peaceful communities in Lagos State
with an annual crime rate below 10%.
Zomachi
Arts Culture and Tourism network will provide the following:
1.
Tourism Consultancy
1.
Negotiation for provision of lands for
Tourism, cultural and private enterprise from the communities and Government.
2.
Organised both local and international
festivals
(a) International
Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its abolition every August 23rd
(b) Vothun
Festival
(c) Zangbeto
Festival
(d) African
Drums Festival
(e) Gozen
3.
Tour Guides and Guards
4.
Reservations / bookings for Hotels and
accommodation
5.
Boat cruise from Badagry to neighboring
countries, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Cote D’ivoire etc.
6.
Taxis and Chauffeur driven limousine from the
Airport
7.
Helicopter hiring to Badagry from other parts
of Nigeria.
8.
Reservation of Flights / Tickets all over the
world.
9.
Supply of Vothun Religious paraphernalia and Craft items
10. Construction
of Museums & Temples
11. Private
/ Personal Assistants on Culture and Tourism
12. Shipping
and Clearing agents
13. Events
Recordings
14. Supply
of Cultural Troupes
15. Rain
makers consultants for events etc.
16. Philanthropic
activities to the less privileged children, women and widows.
17. African
herbs / preparations
18. Dealers
in antiques and African artworks
19. Souvenir
and other rare items.
Online
Bookings available
To: Zomachi Arts Culture and Tourism Network
107, Marina Road, awhanjigoh, Jengen Palace,
Badagry, Lagos State, Nigeria.
E-mail: zomachimayijage@gmail.com
www.zomachimayijageblogspot.com
+234 807 091 7056
PARTICIPATION OF ZOMACHI ARTS CULTURE
AND TOURISM NETWORK
THE BADAGRY SLAVE ROUTE PROJECT
On
Tuesday, 16th and 17th December 1997, Zomachi Arts, Culture and Tourism Network
supported efforts of the Africa Travel Association (ATA) Nigeria Chapter which
organized a seminar on the “SLAVE
ROUTE” project at the Whispering Palms, Iworo
Badagry.
That
effort flagged-off the commencement of Slave Route Project in Badagry Local
Government on Tuesday 18th May 1999, the Lagos State Government formally
commissioned series of infra-structural facilities on the coastline at the
Marina, Badagry as part of its efforts towards further project of the “Slave Route”. These facilities consist of Slave Relics
Museum, Parks and Garden,
Jetty, Restoration of the Slave Paths, and Gazebo huts.
Zomachi
Arts Culture and Tourism participated in this structural development of the “Badagry Slave Route”
as a consultant on the Restoration of the Slave Paths, Relics and places of
memory.
On
Monday 23rd August 1990 Zomachi Arts, Culture and Tourism Network joined the
Local Government, a number of other organizations in observing the
“International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition”
with a series of activities. Earlier the
president of Zomachi Arts Culture and Tourism Network, Prince Yomi Semedeton
Ajose had led a 4-man delegation of Cultural / Tourism practitioners and
bureaucrats to PANAFEST ’99 in Ghana.
The
Suntan Beach Resort, a sprawling half kilometer Beach Resort, having 30 beach
huts, restaurants, Arts and Crafts Centre, 20 guests charlets, and a massive
ground for entertainment on the beach front was constructed by the Badagry
Local Government in September 1999 as a Reply to the “Badagry Slave Route
Project”.
Subsequently
seeks of visits, meetings and consultation had held at the instances of the
Lagos State Government, Honourable Minister for Culture and Tourism and His
Excellency, UNESCO Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Emmanuel Apea.
All
the aforementioned activities have now culminated in the BADAGRY GROUND TABLE
which gave birth to the Black Heritage Festival in Badagry 2001.
Zomachi
Arts Culture and Tourism, under the leadership of Prince Yomi Semedeton Ajose
was appointed by the Lagos State Government as a Consultant on Oral History,
Restoration of Slave Port and other monuments in preparation for the Black
Heritage Festival in 2001.
The Diaspora
The
Motherland Group – owned by three African American, Messrs. Alfred Dixon, former Mayor of Greenevers, NC.
U.S.A. Marlon Jackson SR. Entertainer and brother of the legend Michael Jackson
and Gary Lorster, a former Mayor of Saginaw in Michigan,
proposed a N3.8 billion Tourim project to be sited at the Gberefu Peninsula
in Badagry.
1. The
Lagos State Government has approved the site around the Slave Route for this development which is
ongoing.
3. ZACnet has attracted so many Africans in
the Diaspora to Badagry.
The Philanthropic Project
On
the 8th of July 2015, ZACnet working in partnership with Dr. Michelle J.
McCollin, a professor from Pennsylvania in U.S.A. distributed shoes, school bags and
writing materials to the less privilege pupils of Yafin Local
Authority Primary
School, Badagry.
On
the 8th of August, over 200 pairs of reading glasses were donated to members of
the Eighty Quarters in Badagry and other words in Badagry Local Government.
Cultural
Festival – ZACnet has started promoting traditional festivals e.g. Vothun,
Zangbeto, Gozen etc in Badagry.
THE MISSION OF THE BADAGRY COMMUNITY ON
THE SLAVE ROUTE PROJECT
Preamble:
Badagry
town with her ancient port is historically tied to the commodity trade and the
Transatlantic Slave Trade as well as later day missionary activities from about
the 15th to the 19th centuries which drew the whole of West Africa to the orbit
of the wider world of Europe and the America.
Consequently,
the town of Badagry
has many landmark, historic places, significant sites and monument which are
now under threat from modern development, private and public interests.
The
UNESCO’s Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet) has recognized the value
of this coastal heritage by selecting it as a pilot education project for youth
on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (TST) in 2001.
Encouraged
by this gesture the Badagry Local Government is determined through its various
efforts since 1997 to capitalize on this new awareness, to convert her heritage
capital into socioeconomic benefit and opportunities for resident population
through conservation and sustainable tourism that will attract international
visitors (tourist, scholars etc).
Palm
and Coconut Trees which modulate the intensity of the tropical Africa sun.
Events
unfolding have shown that the UNESCO/WTO “Slave Route” project has become an
inevitable project of Development for Badagry Local Government in which the Lagos State
/ Federal Governments and a number of agencies cannot but participate and
invest.
Therefore,
the mission of the Badagry communities on this project is divided into four.
ZACnet
was commissioned by the Local Government to prepare a comprehensive document on
the project Highlights.
RESOLUTIONS AND PROJECTS HIGHLIGHT
In
line with the established sub-committees of the intergovernmental committee of
UNESCO Projects Highlights emanating from the experiences of the celebration
can be addressed by ZACnet as follows:
1. DOCUMENTING SOURCE, ARCHIVES AND DATA BANK
a. Documenting
historical accounts on advent and activities of Christian Missionary in
Badagry.
b. Documenting
historical accounts on returnees from Sierra Leone and other places who
have returned via Badagry and their present destinations.
c. Documenting
oral accounts on stories about the Slave Trade and its remains throughout the
length of Badagry Local Government.
d. Documenting
oral accounts on various socio-historical and cultural accounts on
intra-cultural relations generated in Badagry as a result of the Slave Trade
and its Abolition.
e. Archival
assemblage of correspondences, reports and documents of voyages to Badagry
during the slave Trade and its Abolition.
f. Archival
assemblage of correspondences, report, documents of early Christian
Missionaries.
g. Archival
assemblage of correspondences, report, documents of early District Officers who
operated in Badagry.
h. Data bank on
figures relating to slaves, Trade items and Missionary articles in Badagry.
2. RESEARCH
a. The Local
Government should encourage Historical, Anthropological, Sociological and
Ecumenical research projects in all ramifications on Badagry, its environment
and people, since 15th century to date.
3. HISTORICAL MONUMENTS, MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL
TOURISM
a. The Local
Government should encourage environmental beautification through the
development of parks and gardens based on the erection of the monuments of
figures, objects, persons and composition on subjects of the slave trade and
its abolition.
b. The Local
Government should encourage extensive and expansive archaeological excavations
on the stretch of the Badagry beach land particularly around Gberefu and other
historical reference areas.
c. Archaeological
findings should be assembled, analyzed, documented and stored / displayed in
designated topical museums to be erected in Badagry.
d. The Local
Government should establish appropriate machinery required to project the
various aspects of ECOTOURISM for which the Local Government is well endowed
(e.g. cultural tourism, agricultural tourism, marine tourism, sports tourism
and education tourism).
4. EDUCATIONAL,
TRAINING AND PUBLICITY
a. The Local
Government should take active steps of dialogue with educational institutions
towards influencing the encouragement of the teaching of cultural tourism.
b. The Local
Government should solicit the cooperation of educational institutions in the
Local Government to guide against the adverse effects of tourism development in
the educational life of school children and youths.
c. Training
of indigenes in the various aspects of cultural - tourism should be encouraged
through workshops, seminars, conferences, symposia, colloquium and curriculum
development for schools.
1.
To mobilize and ensure the mass participation
of indigenes in all activities, project and programmes of the “Slave Route”
2.
To affirm and assert the international status
of Badagry Local Government so bestowed on it by the “Slave Route” as different from the status
of a Local Government as it generally connotes.
In effect, the leadership of the Local Government while participating in
the state and National committees on the Slave Route will not hesitate to exercise
this international status by relating internationally on its own.
3. To guarantee economic empowerment of the mass
indigenes through the establishment of a “TOURISM INVESTMENT FUND”. This fund, which will be launched by the
Local Government, would encourage participation by all income earners
irrespective of how meager the income is.
This fund will in turn participate in as many
commercial investments in Badagry Local
Government as possible particularly in tourism-related areas.
4.
To be effectively involved in initiating a
major event of Cultural – Tourism significances, such that would guarantee the
preservation, promotion, propagation and presentation of the creative Arts,
Cultural Heritage and Cultural Identity of the indigenous people of Badagry
Local Government as contained in the “CULTURAL POLICY FOR NIGERIA” (1989) and
the four cardinal objective of the WORLD DECADE FOR CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
(UNESCO, 1989 – 1998).
PRINCE
YOMI S. H. AJOSE
CHAIRMAN
COMMUNITY LIAISON COMMITTEE
BADAGRY LOCAL GOVERNMENT
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