As part of the on going 2021 Osun Osogbo Festival, stakeholders led by the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding, Osogbo, are set to stage an intellectual discourse. Other partners promoting the intellectual platform aimed at seeking new value adding strategies to the globalisation of the annual festival are the Government of the State of Osun, the Ataoja of Osogbo in Council, Osogbo, Cultural Heritage Council (OCHC), Suzanne Wenger Colloquium and Strycaz Consulting Limited.
According to a statement issued by Toye Arulogun, Managing Consultant to the festival, Osun Osogbo Festival Discourse is scheduled for 10:30am on Thursday 12th August 2021 at the Ulli Beier Hall of the Centre for Black Culture, with the theme; Osun Osogbo Festival: Yoruba Culture on the Global Stage featuring Prof Felix Ayoh Omidire, Director, Institute of Cultural Studies Ilé-Irúnmọle, OAU, Ile-Ife as the Lead Speaker. Discussants at the festival symposium are Dr. Enoch Gbadegesin (Department of Religious Studies, OAU), Dr. Shina Alimi of the Department of History, OAU and Akin Adejuwon, Curator, the Wole Soyinka Museum, ICS-OAU. The statement stated further that the grand finale of the festival which is the biggest annual religious festival among the Yoruba people and serves as a strong unifying factor for indigenes of Osogboland with a local and international audience of Osun devotees, worshippers and Yoruba culture enthusiasts in diaspora comes up on Friday 13th August with the sacrificial offering by “Arugba” at the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.
