Our Programmes

Short-term programmes

• Publication of a Calendar of market days in Osun State, to be expanded within a year to cover two other neighbouring states and eventually all Yoruba states. This is based on the fact that Yoruba markets are not just commercial institutions but also socio-cultural institutions.
• Simultaneous work on a Yoruba calendar of festivals, again starting with Osun state.
• Support for local/indigenous artists through exhibitions
• Exhibition of arts from other Nigerian, African and non-African societies
• Book fairs (books in Yoruba and on Yoruba culture and society in any language)
• Periodic invitation of musicians from other black cultures
• Regular invitation of musicians and artists from other societies/countries
• Promotion of cultural exchanges between Nigeria and other African countries (Nigerians know more about Europe and America than about their nearest neighbours north, east, south and west).

The short-term activities will of course vary from time to time, especially on specifics.

Long-term Programmes

• Setting up of a translation bureau and the dictionary committee
• Setting up a Yoruba language Academy to oversee the standardization of a literary Yoruba
• Setting up a publishing house specializing (but not exclusively) in Yoruba publications
• Yoruba dictionary project
• Translations of the Holy Bible (and Koran?) into contemporary Yoruba
• Annual literary prizes in Yoruba literature and in translations into Yoruba
• The creation of a ‘Yoruba library’: books in all languages dealing with all aspects of Yoruba society.
• The creation of an audio-visual library in which, as a first step, will be gathered all Yoruba video-films. This will be followed by the more ambitious one of gathering video-films from the rest of the country, Benin Republic, Ghana, and beyond. This programme is based on our belief that, in the absence of a vigorous writing in the language, some genres of the Yoruba video-film now constitute the major repository of Yoruba language.

Endangered Language: These long-term projects, as is obvious, is in keeping with the UNESCO policy on education and indigenous languages. Because of the population of its speakers (over 30 million), Yoruba language may appear for now not to be an endangered language, but anybody watching the trend in our education system will agree that in another twenty years or so, it will become one. In this regard, the Centre will seek to persuade all Yoruba states to make Yoruba the compulsory language of instruction in all subjects right up to end of primary school. This exists in Nigeria’s education policy, but nobody observes it.