Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Clara Pulido, has said that African culture, especially Nigerian and Yoruba culture, has been given preference by the Cuban government to honour ancestors from the continent with the provision of a network of museums devoted to African culture.
Pulido said the honour was for the development brought by African ancestors who arrived in the Caribbean in a horrible situation during the period of slavery. She made the declaration during the Eunic Cluster celebration to honour Yoruba culture in Abuja on Wednesday.
“In the case of Cuba, a network of museums is devoted to the African culture to honour ancestors In the case of Cuba, we have a network of museums devoted to African culture, and we have many places devoted to the slave roots to honour those ancestors who arrived in a very horrible condition and later on made tremendous contributions to Cuban development till today and tomorrow,” she said.
The Cuban Ambassador stated that the Cuban government has established a park in the country’s capital, Havana named after African heroes, including a tree image of Nigeria’s founding fathers, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Obafemi Awolowo.
“In Havana, we have a park called the Park of African Heroes, where there are many images of founding fathers, in the case of Nigeria, a tree image of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikwe, and Obafemi Awolowo expresses Nigerian unity; in that regard, in Cuba, we honour African culture as well as Nigerian culture, and Yoruba as part of Nigerian culture.
“The impact of the Yoruba culture in the Americas is one of the expressions of African extension to the Americas; this is not only the Yoruba culture but other cultures from Africa, especially from Nigeria, that also has a very strong impact in the case of Cuba and many other cases on our continent,” she said.
President of the European National Institute for Culture, Eunic Cluster Nigeria, Eva Verta, from the Spanish embassy, stated that the cluster works on projects of mutual interest that are part of the European Union’s cultural diplomacy.
According to her, there was a special call for projects to work inter-regionally, and those were very specific projects in which they had partners from Latin America working presently on projects in Nigerian museums, with four Nigerian museum representatives going to European museums.
“The cluster and research work on cultural projects we feel we have interest in. We are planning to organise these kinds of events every year, however, we are focusing now on these museum projects. It’s been going on since 2019, and it will continue till next year as well,” she said.
