The National Council for Arts and Culture NCAC will roll out medical and conventional face masks made from local adire and Ankara fabrics as well as sanitizers made from local natural resources.
This was prompted by the Nigerian government’s growing concern for the use of face masks and sanitizers to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
The items will be embossed with the NCAC logo in order to check imitation and showcase homegrown solutions to demands for the kits.
The Director-General of NCAC, Segun Runsewe, disclosed that the measures are part of well thought out interventions that will help bridge the gap in the demands and needs to breach the COVID-19 protocols.
“We shall be targeting the culture tourism community, the media, the security agencies at the front line of the battle to the successful and full compliance of the lockdown and also the medical professionals”, he said.
Exploiting the huge cultural resources in Nigeria
Runsewe described the initiative as a necessity and response to exploit the huge cultural resources in Nigeria. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has provided Nigeria a great opportunity to look inwards for the production of relevant kits and accessories made exclusively in Nigeria which will meet with export standard and health protocols.
“We cannot just sit down and expect help from outside the country all the time. We should respond to this challenge by looking inwards and creatively discover certain benefits in our cultural endowment, support the process of indigenous response to all health challenges not just COVID 19 pandemic. Necessity is the mother of all inventions around the world.
” Ours is not only to support government directives that Nigerians should wear face masks in public places but to develop a determined basic cultural socio-economic baseline to the effective use and engagement of local fabrics and natural resources to which Nigeria is well blessed”, he added.
The NCAC has made the use of local fabrics, arts, and crafts, the fulcrum of a new and emerging economy thereby promoting Nigerian cultural products.
Source: VON
