The Eyo festival which held on Saturday with about N4billion economic potential will help reflate the economy, Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode said.
The Eyo Festival, also known as the Adamu Orisa was mostly celebrated for the safe passing of kings and notable chiefs in the afterlife. It is now held as a tourist event.
Eyo masquerades mostly dress in white and they come out in their thousands with thousands of others attending the festival. This year it was held as part of the activities to mark the Lagos at 50 celebrations.
Speaking when he hosted State House correspondents to a welcome dinner for its bi-annual retreat in the state, the governor said the monies spent in organising the Eyo festival and the Lagos at 50 celebrations were meant to reflate the economy since it would go into the hands of the people.
He noted that people might sometimes ask why the state was making so much noise about Lagos at 50.
“But then there is so much economic sense in it, we are just using it to reflate the economy.
“Whatever it is that we have expended in the different sectors in the event we are putting money in the pockets of other people, the artistes, and the artisans.
“Just as we reactivate the Eyo festival, that is almost like an N3billion or N4billion economy, not from us’’ he said adding that no fewer than 10,000 masquerades were to feature.
“They are likely to go and sew new regalia, so that is working capital for many of them, that is how to make sense out of it.
“The drivers, the security men the cap they are going to wear, some people are going to do it.
“At the end of the day money would have circulated within one week, with N5 billion may be, to almost one million people that never expected to have money.
“So that is what we are trying to do every time so that in every sector of the economy there is something circulating around”.
The governor who commissioned some new projects earlier in the week as part of the Lagos at 50 celebrations said the strategy was to invest in infrastructure to make the state a catalyst for the economic prosperity of the country.
He plans to attract more investors to the state which is the fifth largest economy in the continent to move it to the third largest
economy by the end of his administration.
Lagos with a population of about 17.5million people rakes in N26billion monthly from Internally Generated Revenues.
According to him the monies being spent on the anniversary by the administration was circulating only in the state.
“The money does not go out of Lagos; instead more people will come in and start circulating it.
“And that why we have been able to become the catalyst to take Nigeria out of recession because we are very focused about the kind of things that we are doing,” he said.
He said a lot of construction were going on in many parts of the state in order to make the artisans stay in their localities and earn revenue for the upkeep of their families and strengthen the nation’s economy.
“And that is the strategy to reflate the economy,’ he said adding that the citizens did not want so much.
“They want us to enable them to move from one place to another with ease, to live their lives and to have something to keep for their children.
“Once we are able to do that, they will live in peace,’’ he said.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Fola Adeyemi, the governor declared open the retreat on Saturday.
He urged the reporters to protect the profession and avoid the influence of some negative reports from the social media.
The Presidential aide on Social Media, Tolu Ogunlisi, in a lecture urged the corps to balance the speed of the social media with the accuracy of news and urged the media to be multi-tasking in its delivery of information.
The Chief Executive Officer of Phase 3 Telecoms, Stanley Jegede, who also delivered an address urged the media to harness the advantages of broadband technology to facilitate effective media practice.
Elizabeth Archibong
