Dressing The Face of Heritage by the Chief Host

Picture of The Face of Heritage 2014

Culture and Medicals with Dr. Dan-Fulani

Traditionally, it is believed that medical is one of our cultures and there is no doubt it is our culture. Treatment is one thing that is done in every part of the world carried out on a sick fellow either on the young ones or the older ones, the male or the female. In the days past, leafs, tree peals, tree seeds, and all produce of the farmland is been used to perform the medical treatments.

In the meantime, the development has prune the scientist to carry out a lot of researches on the use of these herbs to produce them in a form which they can be taken directly as bought from the pharmacy unlike those time when you will need to cook, wash, mix them up with other things for its uses.

The interview with the Medical director, Kubwa general hospital, Dr. Hammed Dan-Fulani gives more light on the relationship between the medicals and culture.

The Heritage: can we meet you sir?

M. D: My name is Dr. Hammed Dan-Fulani.

The Heritage: In time past, it is believed that medical is traditional whereas, believed that tradition is ritual. What would you have to say about this?

M.D: To start with, I will let you know that the traditional behavior of man “African” in general, has both the positive and the negative aspect especially in medical. Medical practice itself has some background in the traditional activities of people over the years, so it will not surprise me to see some of these practices of Africans that are still in practice today. If we start from some of the traditional ways of life, the religion, the practices, the culture, and many of them now, you will find out that there is something. When we look at the family lives in Africa, you will find out that there is very strong coition between the family lines, in other words, you will see people who care for each other and you will see a lot of interactions between the members of the families. If we also look into some of the traditional way of the old fashion things like our marriages and part of things we do in Africa, a lot of occasions, people go and get fresh fruits like leafs, tomatoes, fresh everything directly from the market and which is a lot better than what we have in terms of refrigerator foods, processed foods, and lots of that so, that also have a positive sides in our culture.

The Heritage: Sir, while you were talking, you mentioned something “Religion” please, what would you say about the relationship between Culture and Religion?

M.D: Well, there is little difference between religion and culture but the difference is such that most of the religion we are practicing today has its background.

While those religion are been practicing, knowingly or unknowingly, the culture of those people that brought them were chipped into that religion and so, people finds it difficult to separate between the tenets or belief of the religion from the culture. So, there is a lot of things tagged in the culture and that is why we see that both Christianity and Islam when they came to Nigeria, there is a lot of difficulties in getting people away from their culture that they were already used to, which is not in consonant with the religious belief of they want to follow.

Now, typically if you look at one, let start from dressing. Islam doesn’t have a dressing code other than description that you must not expose this, you must do this, but anyhow you can do it would be acceptable by Islam. But unfortunately or fortunately, where the religion came from, they already have a particular way of dressing and that is what we expected down to this line.

If you see an average pastor, you will see him dressed like me, wearing suit and all of that. That’s not African culture. it is the culture of the mothern people. But because those who brought the Christianity wear it, it has been imported. But there is a little gap between the strict religion belief and culture. So, whatever we do is what form the part of our culture, the way we do naming, marriage ceremony and all those, forms the background of our culture. Most of the time you will see an overlap between religious belief and cultural belief, that is why you will see some of our culture today, going away, through the importation of western beliefs which are not necessarily religious, it’s just their way of life.

Dr. Hammed Dan-Fulani, Medical Director Kubwa General Hospital, During the Interview.

The Heritage: what would you have to say about those negative sides of the traditional religion that are making the people to deviate from our culture?

M.D: in Nigeria and Africa at large, there are great similarities between the culture of the people and the traditional religion we practice.

The earlier people before the coming of the religion have the way of life which they also referred to as religion, some worship some kind of deity, some worship rivers, and all kinds of things and they also have the way of doing some certain things. For instance, in Yoruba land, I don’t know how true it is, that if someone wants to become a king, they will remove the heart of the recently dead king and cook it for the person who wants to become the next king. That is a cultural/religious practice which a man cannot stand to tell sometimes, but is no longer practicable.

That is one of the negative parts of the tradition, as I earlier said that the culture has its positive and negative parts. To me, that is what I understand to be negative.

You should also know that they kill people for rituals. I schooled in ile-ife and one of the rituals is they kill one person each day. So, you can imagine where they kill 365 people every year. So, many traditional things that even in traditional religion may not have a say, those are the things to be referred to as traditional culture.

So there are lots of cultural practices that are positive and that are negative and I’ve given you some instances. Even the traditional way of dressing, is the aspect that borders me a lot. If you go to India, china, they don’t allow the western culture to dominate their culture, which is the tragedy in our society today, we have allowed the western culture into our midst, seeing a girl wearing jeans and shirt, from a far you won’t know either she’s a boy or a girl and we don’t see anything wrong in that. We are wasting our time and we are leaving our culture. So many things are wrong.

What is wrong with the “Iro and Buba” (the Yoruba traditional wears) that our ladies can’t wear?

One, it will create more opportunity of jobs for people. Secondly, people will come and respect our culture from outside; it’s even cheaper most of the times.

Definitely, we are encouraging other people’s economy, and now they are introducing “Homosexuality” to us. So, those are the parts of our cultural analysis that are chipping into our own culture.

The Heritage: Sir, what are your profound suggestions on how to solve these highlighted problems?

M.D: There are so many ways that we can encourage our culture, one is by encouraging the presentation of our cultural heritage and again we must encourage dressing codes for our women. It may sound very hash but I believe in the manner that introduction of dressing code which some universities are doing.

Sometimes, youths are just being exuberant, they don’t know what they are doing right or what they are doing wrong such that they may need guardian, they are the future of the society, and we can mould them such that they will appreciate the traditional way of doing things. Competitions can also be organized in our own traditional ways of doing things, let them wear traditional dresses. Encourage the most beautiful girl and all of that. Even some can be done in all this home videos where they do something traditional/cultural and moreover, and legislation can look into where things are difficult.

“FACE OF HERITAGE 2014”

“FACE OF HERITAGE 2014”

Do you wish to be the next bearer of the Face of Heritage in places?

It’s an opportunity to build and boost your career  for life recognition.

Mode of application:

·       Pick up a form at “The Heritage Frontiers” cooperate office at Shop number 17, doma corner shop. Along gwagwalada secretariat road. Gwagwalada, Abuja. Call Debby: 08133324499

·       Click I.C.T. centre, opposite Uni-abuja mini campus. Call Jerome: 08136124937

·       Forms may be picked and submitted on behalf of an applicant

·       Submission should not be later than one (1) week to audition

·       Forms are to be submitted with a photocopy of your state of origin attestation

·       Instructions and terms will be at the back of the forms

·       Form costs 1,500 naira each

Here are some rules that may restrict some applicants:

1.    Applicants must be between 18years and 28years old

2.    Application is opened to unmarried young ladies and men only

3.    Applicants may be student or self employed but not idle

4.    Applicants must be culturally informed from all the regions of Nigeria

5.    Application is opened to male and female

6.    Appearance must be in tune with Nigerian Culture

Some benefits of the contest:

As an applicant, you are entitled to all materials distributed in the programe

As an applicant, you are entitled to tips on cultural makeup

 Applicants are entitled to gifts presented by the sponsors

Applicant’s pictures will be published on our blog sites i.e. www.theheritagefrontiers.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theheritagefrontiers

Winners, are entitled to visits to Royal palaces, representing “The Heritage Frontiers”

As a winner, your interviews and picture galleries travels far as beyond the country in our subsequent publications.

Winners will be awarded with the “TAG” of Face of Heritage

Date: 25^th April 2014

Time: 9:30am

Venue: will be communicated to applicants.

What you need to know about "NAME"

NAME

Name is a very sensitive, spirit-filled and historical life “tag” which should be cherished as it’s so important. What does a name depict in your view? Why do names mean so much to our ancestors? Why do parents name us after occurrences in the family?

Some are called “Yetunde, Iyabo” meaning, Mother is back. One thing we should know is that ‘NAME’ is so sensitive that we should not just give it to children anyhow. Names have crucial roles to play in human lives. Some parents give names to their children because they do not want to forget some occurrences in their lives.

As the Yoruba will say, “Ile ni a n wo ki ato so omo ni oruko” meaning we look into situations around us before giving names to the child. Take for instance “Ayodeji” this means the combination of two joyful moments. That is, the joy of the child born and probably something else that brings joy happened the moment the child was born.

“Ene” in Idoma language means “Mother”. It is a name given to an Idoma lady. It should be noticed that most children when they grow to know what these names mean, they tend to change their names. They do not know the reasons behind the names they bear, and this brings about discouragement in Bearing such names or carrying it about. For this reason, you will see a child calling herself names that do not exist even among the names given to her at birth, Such names like “Suzy, Joys, Jazzy” e.t.c.

A parent has the responsibility of telling the children the reason for the name and to let them know why they were given such names. Taylor says: “if you teach a child what he needs to know, he tends not to make a mistake from it”. When a child is getting to the age when he/she can understand things, A parent has the responsibility of telling the child the reason or reasons behind the name. As this would make the child happy and proud bearing such name, but in a case where the child doesn’t know the origin of his/her name, he tends not to know what it means and would not be able to cope since he/she does not know.

In conclusion, “JABEZ” in the bible did not start prospering until he begged God to change his name which meant SORROW.

Keeping history is good, it is part of our Cultural Heritage, but we should try and learn not to name children after unfortunate occurrences. Names are strong and should be chosen with care because the name given to one has a way of affecting one and telling on its bearer either positively or negatively depending on the meaning of the name.

By: Ogundipe A. James

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Watch out for "The Face of Heritage 2014"................. Gonna be "BOOM"

THE OLUGBO OF UGBO KINGDOM

Dr. Sarah Jubril - A Light-bearer of our Heritage

Dr Sarah Jubril

Special Adviser, Ethics and Value, to the President of Nigeria.

Dr. Mrs. Sarah Jibril is Special Adviser to the President on Ethics and Values Presidential Aspirant under the platform of the SDP and then PDP.

Dr. Sarah has an impressive history of achievement in a wide range of educational, ethics, governance, education, charitable and business roles.

By profession a Counseling Psychologist in the areas of Family, Youth & Politics, she was educated in Nigeria, the UK and the USA, and comes from the Kwara state, where she held roles in the State Broadcasting Corporation, the Special Task Force on Social development, and was the Honourable Commissioner of Social Development, Youth Sports and Culture.

Throughout her working life she has held an extensive range of roles in, and support for NGOs including The Human Development Foundation of Nigeria of which she was one of the founders, and the Africa Fund for Development, Peace and Reconciliation (AFRIF-DPR) of which she was President, and became Chairman of the non-partisan Task Force on political Awareness of National Council of women’s societies. She is also a trustee of various youth and womens’ charities.

Dr Jubril has a keen interest in politics being a presidential candidate for Kwara state, and then becoming the first Nigerian woman national presidential contestant.

More recently Sarah has become Chairman of the Governing Council of the Federal college of Education, and winner of various awards including the Dr. Martin Luther King Award –For Leadership Excellence in the USA, the This Day Newspaper Awardee of Life Achievers, the 50 Women of Valour awards and the First Lady of Nigeria’s 50 Women award.

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