Initially it was established as Our Lagos Your Lagos Initiative before the present administration in Lagos State. It was later changed it to Connecting Lagos, a platform which is being used to protect and nurture the interest of Lagos State across its various tenets and values. In this interview with Omolara Akintoye, the Convener of the initiative, Executive Director, Connecting Lagos and, Sisi Oge, the Pride of Africa, a platform which promotes African Heritage, Mr. Idris Aregbe, explains how he has devised various methods to ensure that Lagos culture and by extension, African culture is valued over the years. Excerpts
What prompted you to establish Our Lagos Your Lagos Initiative which is now known as Connecting Lagos?
I was born and raised in Lagos. I believe Lagos belongs to everybody in as much as you want to add to the progress of Lagos, if you have true passion for Lagos, you’ve got the zeal to make Lagos work. This is a state that accommodates everyone and with this in mind, we came up with the concept, OLYL, which is targeted at connecting Lagos to the world. We are looking at connecting Lagos through arts, culture, tourism, and investments among other sectors. This is about connecting people, generations and possibilities to move us all forward. This is about unity and prosperity.
Tell us more about initiative and the Itesiwaju Ipinle Eko Concert which was born out of it?
Our Lagos Your Lagos is a proactive initiative that nurtures and protects the interest of Lagos as a state across its various tenets and values. It employs forward-thinking and strategic initiatives geared towards ensuring a more secured, well informed, peaceful and habitable place for its residents. As a result, we came up with the Itesiwaju Ipinle Eko Concert to interact with people and as we all know, Lagos is the hub of entertainment in Nigeria and it is a metropolitan city representing so many ethnicities. The Concert is a moment to unite and celebrate our common values as a people through music and dance.
What impact has the initiative had on people?
There are lots of success stories with lots of women and youths being empowered in different areas. I believe in teaching people how to fish because I know that this is what will take them far in life.
What are the challenges you have encountered?
Challenges are something that you encounter on a daily basis. Whether we like it or not, the society is bad and we’ve lost our values. Things have changed, looking at corruption and bad governance in this country is from the top and this cannot help us unless we go back to the root. The degeneration is so high that you will do something wrong and the society will still hail you. Mind you, there are still many of our leaders who stand by these values, let’s learn from them. We need to go back to the root, knowing more about our values and appreciating it.
What are your other interests?
Building a peaceful community is a glorious task that must be done. My other interest lies within my community and the people around. I love to see people happy. I love to empower, engage and redirect‘ the people around me.
What stirs your creative and entrepreneurial spirit?
Digging deep for answers and my philosophy that impossibilities don’t exist. Solution lies somewhere, so I dig further. I like to create and always come up with a unique style that will bear my signature.
What is your definition of youth empowerment?
Youth empowerment to me is not just calling youth together and buying start-off pack for them; to me, it is about engaging them to know their needs before giving them the necessary skills so that it can benefit them. The reason for this is to guard against their selling off these starter packs which happens in most cases. I’ve empowered so many people and I’m still in the business and it has made a lot of positive impact because I engaged them first, be it women or youth, before empowering them.
It’s been 11 years of promoting African culture. Would you say it has met your expectations?
I think the first thing to have in mind is that life is not a bed of roses and whatever you have to do, do it right. The Almighty God has been our cornerstone and we are quite hopeful for the future. And that is the reason we are here today. Organising a cultural event of this magnitude for 10 years in this country is not an easy task. We have seen a lot of people come up with different concepts but within a short period they just fade out but we have been able to stand through the years in spite of the challenges we were confronted with.
How are you funding the initiative in all the 57 local government areas?
As an entrepreneur and the Chief Executive Officer of over two companies, I invest the profits I make from these businesses on people and it is something I’ve been doing over the years. Apart from this, I also have people that I look up to who believe in what I do and also invest in these projects.
Will this initiative outlive the present government?
Definitely, it will; it is a project that is being appreciated by both the government and the people. We will have a Lagos that will be a place of pride for generations to come.
What are your plans for this year?
The Season 1 of the Connecting Lagos Talent Hunt is on, it was designed to discover, celebrate and reward youths in the state in the areas of dance, music and other creative exploits with auditioning on-going. We are going to organise a lot of empowerment programmmes by collaborating with Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria (FADAN) as well as Nike Arts Gallery. The aim is to raise ambassadors and people, who believe in connecting Lagos, it is an avenue for connecting people to their culture as well as afford the opportunity for people to generate possibilities in terms of business investment, tourism, arts and culture among others for the growth of Lagos State. Our amiable governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, is playing his part and for us as citizens all we need do is to come up with different ideas and initiatives to support Ambode’s laudable ideas. Also, this year, the Sisi Oge, the Pride of Africa will be 11 years; a lot of people have dreams and trying to live that dream is a problem for many because we have somehow lost our values. It has been 11 years of promoting African values and 11 years of celebrating our cultural heritage, as well as exchanging cultures all over the world knowing more about our values and roles; it’s something that we are happy about; we believe in and we are glad to be doing it and it has come to stay. The pageant is predicated upon the promotion of Africa’s heritage and values to the outside world. The event is aimed at the public and in particular the youths, with an objective of reconnecting them with their roots and origin using arts and culture as tools for national development.