Kalabari Indigenes in Lagos Celebrate Music, Culture in Grand Style

The Kalabari based in Lagos recently got together to celebrate their culture, music, food and traditional attire in a grand style.

During the event those in attendance were tasked with the need for Kalabari parents in Lagos to teach their children their dialect and also emphasised the use of the dialect as a secondary means of communication in the home in order to prolong the life cycle of the dialect.

Speaking during the event, the Convener, Rev. Asoliye Douglas-West said that migration induced by globalisation and urbanisation appeared to be fuelling the threat of extinction of dialects spoken by some minority ethnic groups.

“The threat of extinction is real as there is a steadily declining population that can fluently speak the Kalabari dialect realising that the Kalabari language does not form part of the linguistic curriculum of the educational system”, he noted.

The cleric disclosed further that the essence of all Kalabari gathering in Lagos especially during the festive mood of the yuletide season is to reinforce the bond of concord and camaraderie and this event occurring at the end of the year reflects the mood of the yuletide season to demonstrate charity and friendship.

He further noted that there were multiple channels that can be explored and employed to preserve the Kalabari cultural heritage.

From the routine informal scheduled community meetings, other organised platforms and instrumentality such as exhibitions, dance drama and colloquium could prove to be very useful and result-oriented.

Douglas-West disclosed that as a way of strengthening the togetherness of the Kalahari people residing in Lagos that those who are strong and capable should be willing and magnanimous to lift and support the weak, adding “those who have created and earned success and are in the commanding heights of their enterprises, vocations and professions should teach others who are willing how to fish”.

The convener added the internet is an information technology revolution that has opened up frontiers of opportunities for imaginable and outlandish thinking and thought processes.

“One way of preserving stock of knowledge is documentation and codification. We can also take advantage of the opportunities available in the media and IT spectrum to do many things that can preserve, store, display facts and artifacts, enlighten and influence hearts and minds, attract patronage and followership and exhibit the colourful grandeur of the Kalabari culture.”