The Director, National Council for Arts and Culture, Bauchi Zonal Directorate, Denja Abdullahi has said that inadequate sensitisation of the Nigerian culture is the bane and missing link in the development of the sector.

Abdullahi made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

He said that the promotion and sensitisation of intercultural dialogue, social cohesion, culture and non-violence would bring the much talked about development in the sector.

Obudu

“Inadequate sensitisation of the role of culture is the missing link in developing the industry and it can only be achieved if individuals, local, states and Federal Governments support the sensitisation agenda.

“We must promote normative action, safeguarding tangible and intangible cultural heritage, capacity building, promotion of cultural and creative industries, dialogue among civilisations and culture.

“Promote the diversity of cultural expressions as well as its role as a catalyst for partnership and clearing house for best practices.

“These will place culture with the comparative advantage of providing the platforms where dialogue, networking and forging new partnership can thrive for the advancement of the sector,’’ he said

According to Abdullahi, the major challenge facing the delivery of cultural programmes in Nigeria is that of demonstrating the direct links between culture and development.

“People are not seeing culture as the missing link to development and economic growth, but go to Kenya, South Africa, the Caribbean, Egypt,

America, and France and so on and see how tourism has transformed their countries.

“No Nigerian elite wants to holiday in Obudu Cattle Ranch, Yankari Games Reserve but they rather spend thousands of dollars abroad visiting their cultural reserved areas and learning their culture.

“Those countries promoted and are still promoting their culture till date, telling and making you believe that what they have are the best.

“Nobody can blow our own trumpet for us so we have to all rise up and promote and patronise what is ours,’’ Abdullahi said.

He said that there was the need to develop a database of cultural statistics of various cultural goods and services across the country and their locations, train and retrain cultural administrators.

“We must operationalise and domesticate cultural conventions in the country, all of which Nigeria have been ratified, form innovative partnership; create awareness among ministries, departments and agencies, UN agencies on the importance of culture to development,’’ he said