By Ademola Adekusibe
September 18, 2025
There has been a tweetstorm, a flood of misguided statements and half-baked celebrations on X, proclaiming that Lagos is stepping up its “cultural mission.” Let us be clear. Lagos has a culture that predates Instagram, jazz nights, and English hashtags. The Yorùbá people built this city, named its streets, ruled its kingdoms, created its markets, and nurtured its arts long before any political appointee decided to slap an English slogan on a festival weekend. Idris Aregbe’s so-called Lagos Cultural Weekend is not culture. It is a theatrical display of mediocrity attempting to masquerade as vision. This is the moment TYT would call for setting the record straight.
It is almost comical to watch a man, whose understanding of Yorùbá heritage barely extends beyond surface-level decorations and foreign partnerships, attempt to “rebrand” a city whose markets, palaces, and festivals have carried the Yorùbá identity for centuries. Idris, this is a public correction, not polite advice. The world knows Lagos because of its people, its Ọbas, its traditions, and its festivals. It does not know “Lagos Jazz Nights” or Instagram-ready photo ops with imported performers. Sit, and listen.
Lagos Culture Weekend or Yorùbá Heritage? You Decide
Idris, sit down and pay attention because this is not a polite suggestion; it is correction. You call it “Lagos Cultural Weekend” as if Lagos exists apart from Yorùbá people, their history, their kings, and their markets. Did you wake up one morning and decide that centuries of Ọbas, chiefs, and merchants who built this city with sweat and blood were irrelevant? Eyo festival has not paraded the streets in eight years. Do you really believe that foreign artistes and jazz nights can replace a masquerade that has carried the soul of Lagos for generations? You are trying to sell Yorùbá identity in a wrapper that smells of political optics and ambition, and you expect applause. That is not pride. That is betrayal.
Go back and study Ọba Dosunmu, Ọba Eshugbayi, and all the kings who nurtured Lagos. They preserved culture through wars, trade disputes, and the arrival of colonial powers. Balogun Market, Idumota, and Oyingbo were more than commerce hubs; they were living classrooms of Yorùbá ingenuity and heritage. Yet you cannot even organize a trade carnival to showcase Adire, beads, drums, Ankara, or owanbe parties for tourists and locals alike. Kyoto has Gion Matsuri, Venice has Carnevale, New Orleans has Mardi Gras; they preserve, elevate, and profit from their heritage. And here you are, appointed by a governor seemingly enamored with mediocrity, fumbling at the very things under your nose.
Look at the scale of the Yorùbá presence across West Africa. In the entire region, whose tribe is larger, more organized, and historically influential than the Yorùbás? Who can claim markets, kingdoms, and diasporic reach that rivals ours? And yet, Idris, you treat our legacy like a side project. Outsiders come to Lagos expecting authenticity. They do not come for cocktails and Instagram backdrops. They come to witness Yorùbá culture in action: markets, festivals, art, and ceremonies. And here you are, thinking an English slogan or a jazz night is a cultural triumph. Sit down, Idris. Ambition alone cannot teach you the value of what you hold. You are not leading a cultural mission; you are babysitting the heritage of a proud people.
Festivals Ignored, Markets Untouched
You speak of culture, yet you ignore the very fabric of Eko heritage that has made Lagos a living museum of Yorùbá life. The Eyo festival, which once brought the streets alive with masquerades, drums, and ancestral pageantry, has not seen daylight in eight years. Can you imagine a city that claims to celebrate itself while leaving the spectacle that defines its identity to dust? You could have leveraged Eyo, Adire festivals, and the Awure dances to create a global magnet for tourism and trade. Instead, your calendars are filled with jazz nights and generic “culture” branding that the world can get anywhere. Paris is Paris because it preserves its monuments and rituals. Kyoto survives centuries because it invests in traditions. Lagos could have outshone them all. You chose mediocrity.
The markets of Lagos tell stories that no imported performers can ever narrate. Balogun, Idumota, Ladipo, and Oshodi are not just shopping spaces; they are living archives of Yorùbá ingenuity, negotiation, and enterprise. Tourists from West Africa and beyond come to see the legendary market structures, hear the dialects, and experience the commerce that rivals any global city. And you, Idris, with your English slogans and borrowed templates, are incapable of elevating them. You talk about tourism but cannot connect the festivals to the people who create Lagos’ vibrancy. This is not cultural promotion; this is cultural abdication.
Even the food culture, the masquerades, the street musicians, the artisans, the bead makers, and the owanbe celebrations are ignored under your tenure. You could have hosted trade carnivals that doubled as tourist attractions. You could have brought marketers, crafters, and chefs together to showcase authentic Yorùbá products and skills. Instead, we are left to watch a man in an office, thinking a foreign jazz band somehow elevates Eko identity. You are a facilitator of erasure, Idris, not a promoter of heritage.
The Language of Betrayal
Idris, your use of English phrases to market Yorùbá culture is the first betrayal. Culture breathes through language. You cannot detach Eko from its language and pretend that a translation can carry the same depth. Yorùbá naming conventions, festival chants, market cries, and palace speeches contain histories and worldviews that no English slogan can replicate. You are offering visitors a cultural appetizer while hiding the main course. Berlin does not market Oktoberfest in English. Beijing does not promote Spring Festival as “Chinese Cultural Weekend.” And you, Idris, are in Lagos, a city of kings, chiefs, and artisans, thinking the language of colonial convenience will suffice. It will not.
Moreover, your slogans flatten the nuances of Yorùbá heritage. You claim inclusivity while alienating the very custodians who could have guided you. Imagine telling Ọba Akiolu, the custodians of the Eyo, or the elders of Idumota, that their centuries of ritual, pageantry, and storytelling are secondary to your imported vision of “culture.” That is arrogance disguised as leadership. Idris, you are trying to rebrand what you do not understand and the consequences are erasure.
The history of Yorùbá kingship teaches that custodianship is sacred. Ọbas, chiefs, and market leaders spent lifetimes preserving identity, teaching values, and defending the city from those who would strip it bare. You are appointed, and yet you do not consult these custodians. Your office exists not for your ambition but to serve heritage. Your neglect is a moral failing, a political mockery, and a cultural betrayal rolled into one.
Political Optics Masquerading as Culture
Every decision you make screams political ambition, not cultural enlightenment. Your jazz nights, waterfront summits, and 101-day marketing campaigns are not about Yorùbá heritage; they are about headlines. You want to look busy, progressive, and international, while Lagos’ soul is ignored. You treat heritage as a prop for your image. You do not bring tourists to understand Yorùbá kingship, Eyo masquerades, Adire artistry, or the commerce of Balogun; you bring them to sip cocktails and applaud your calendar.
Look globally. Even smaller nations with less wealth and fewer people than Lagos pour resources into preserving and projecting their culture. Scotland has the Highland Games, Japan the Gion Matsuri, New Orleans Mardi Gras, and they thrive. Lagos has Ọbas, palaces, markets, artisans, and centuries of pageantry that attract global attention by default. And you, Idris, appointed by a governor comfortable with mediocrity, cannot see that you are sitting on gold and trying to sell brass. The dissonance between what you could do and what you do is breathtaking.
Your ambition blinds you. You think culture is a tool for optics, not identity. Every jazz night, every imported performance, every English slogan reminds us that the person given the office is playing at governance, not heritage. Yorùbá pride deserves a guardian, not a salesman for political appointment.
Opportunities Squandered, Heritage Ignored
Tourists come to Lagos to witness authenticity, to experience a living city of kings, markets, festivals, and crafts. You have ignored every opportunity to connect heritage with economic growth. Imagine hosting a trade carnival, bringing marketers from Balogun, Ladipo, and Oshodi together, inviting tourists to patronize Adire, beads, drums, and Ankara. Imagine creating packages for foreigners to attend owanbe parties, Eyo festivals, and palace tours, each experience narrating centuries of Yoruba history. You could have transformed Lagos into a global cultural hub.
Instead, your calendars are filled with jazz nights and foreign artistes. You celebrate imported music while ignoring the voices of Eko, the beats of Yorùbá drums, the colors of Adire, the joy of masquerades, and the artistry of local markets. You are not only incompetent; you are erasing what your office is meant to preserve. Your ambition blinds you to the reality that the world comes for heritage, not appearances.
Lagos Heritage Cannot Wait
Idris, it is not enough to schedule meetings with editors or issue press releases. Lagos heritage demands action. Palaces, markets, artisans, festivals, and history cannot wait for political optics. You are entrusted with the custodianship of centuries of culture, yet your actions resemble those of a tourist pretending to govern. Foreigners already understand the magic of Lagos because it exists independently of you. You are meant to amplify it, preserve it, and protect it, not rebrand it into a generic calendar of events.
Your inaction is betrayal. Your ambition masquerading as leadership is mockery. Every missed festival, every ignored palace, every neglected market is a testament to a governor who settles for mediocrity and a Special Adviser incapable of understanding his responsibility. The world can see it. So can Lagos. And the time to correct this is now, not when your term ends and excuses are written into history.
Final Word: Custodianship, Not Political Theatre
Lagos is a city of kings, of markets that echo with history, of festivals that narrate centuries of Yorùbá ingenuity. Your office, Idris, is not a stage for ambition, it is a seat of custodianship. The world comes to Lagos for heritage. They do not come for jazz nights, cocktail events, or English slogans. Every failure to act, every missed festival, every neglected market is a betrayal. You were appointed to preserve culture, not to trade it for political optics. The Yorùbá people, their markets, their festivals, their palaces, and their history deserve better than what you have delivered. Sit down and learn.
