•Tells City People His Plans For The Event
Idris Aregbe is a young man who is always brimming with a lot of ideas. Whenever you sit down with him to discuss, you can’t help but notice how deep he is. He is the brain behind the annual Culturati Festival. Before now he used to organise Sisi Oge beauty pageant in Lagos.
Last year’s event was a huge success. And he is set to host this year’s event. It will take place in June. It promises to be a big event going by the success recorded last year and the efforts he is putting into it. What Idris Aregbe is planning is to make this year’s event far, far better than last year’s. How does he see last year’s Culturati show? “It was absolutely fantastic,” he says.
“We thank almighty God and everybody who believed in us and the brand last year, “he told City People, a few days back. “From our own side, we are willing and we will continue to do our best to make sure that we promote African Values & Culture”
“In trying to promote African values, we must also come up with trendy styles and also do it well to make it something people will love and appreciate. We know what we are doing and why we are doing it. That is the more reason we actually rebranded this Culturati because it’s not just about promoting beauty, and fashion, but turning this fashion into something small, medium scale business can benefit from. We are happy that the turn-out is massive. A lot of people believe in that concept and follow us.”
When he started out 12 years ago what was the vision driving the idea? “At the initial stage, we didn’t start this idea because we wanted to promote models or modelling agencies or pageants. What I was just trying to do is to make sure that I believe in this course and I am willing & ready to do everything possible to achieve it. I also went to mobilize a lot of young people to tag along with me to achieve this I thank God that in the past 12 years, I have been able to promote over 70,000 models, made up of male and females. I have also worked with a lot of teams on this project and some of them have come up with their own imputes and support for this. For me, its about pageantry and promoting African culture. That is what we are seeing today. The idea is that we need to do something about our culture.”
“My major fear is that Yes, we still have quite a number of old people, trying to see what they can do, but the question is what happens one day when we wake up and find out that they are no more? Where are the younger ones taking over from them? That is one thing I told late Ambassador, Segun Olusola. I said sir, one day we are going to wake up and find out that you are no more. What is going to happen to all these things you have been able to put together? Who is going to transform it all? I mean who is going to educate people a little bit more on our values and more it’s also about me trying to Empower people, trying to Educate people and create a platform and to carry people along. I am also learning from this process. One thing about the 12th edition that we had last year was that we were able to bring in the male folk into it. So, it’s not about females alone. I am so much passionate about the young ones who are coming”.
“That is my challenge, to keep bringing people who believe in that idea with me. I am so happy with the turning around of this Culturati now. Even after the contents you need to see how happy all these young Male & Female models were. They see it beyond the contest. They see it as a platform that can help them grow. They are fired up and they are willing to do more for our state and our country and the continent and that is the whole essence of this.
It is not just about the festival. It is more than the festival. It is something above result. There must be a result of this, attached to it. People must learn from it. There must be a business side to it. That is the more reason why we set up the Culturati Market Orientation of having to see the different brands coming on board. Yes, we have the numbers. What we need to do is to try and increase more of indigenous products, our locally sustained products. We must let people see our products and love them. At Cultivati you can see a lot of trendy designers coming up with different styles and people are buying it.
The kind of figures people attach to it is not a joke. The value is there and you can see what you are buying. Culturati last year was able to address so many issues. It was able to address small, medium enterprise to see how we can help them. It has been able to address the issue of Fashion. It has been able to encourage people in terms of African delicacies and all that. Every year its going to be bigger and bigger, in terms of content, in terms of value and in terms of what we also have to give our people. Culturati has become a movement.
What in his background prepared him for his role?
“I am a politician. I am into politics. I just believe that someone should always stand up to do what is right in our society. We should look at how we can address some key issues in our society. I have a passion for Fashion, Culture, Tradition, Politics and so many other things. This is what I have passion for. This is what I believe in. It is also a big surprise to me that Culturati which I started 13 years ago is something I thought about 13 years ago. My love for African values made me go into Culturati. We had a seminar about 13 years ago in Ghana. A lot of expatriates flew in to attend and they were all talking about African values. I now said to myself, if these people are this passionate about us, then what is the problem? That means there is something here we have not discovered. There is one Gold or Diamond, there is something in Africa we need to discover, that is how I got into this project to showcase Africa to the world, sell Africa globally”.
-Seye Kehinde
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