Limbe cultural display to grace AFCON spectacles

The Technical Adviser to the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Michel Dissake, has said some cultural display of the Limbe Festival of Arts and Culture shall be selected to lace up the bouquet being readied by the Government to mark the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 African Women’s Cup of Nations to be hosted in Limbe and Yaounde in November.

Dissake was in Limbe on April 2 where he witnessed the opening ceremony of the Limbe FESTAC which was marked by splendid cultural display during a carnival march-past by cultural groupings from all the 10Regions of Cameroon, including those from neighbouring Nigeria, Benin Republic and Togo.

“My Minister sent me here as an observer, because, we need to produce a superb opening ceremony during the AFCON games. So, I came here to observe and see what elements we can select and add to preparations of the opening and closing ceremonies,” he said.

The games will start on November and the finals shall be played on December 3. But it is not yet known if the opening and closing ceremonies shall all take place in Yaounde or they shall be split evenly between the two host cities of Limbe and Yaounde.

Meantime, the opening ceremony for the Limbe Festival was presided at by the Governor of the Southwest Region, Bernard Okalia Bilai.

Moved by the magnificent exhibition of the different cultures of the people of Cameroon and those of neighbouring countries like Benin, Nigeria and Togo, the Governor said “I doff my hat to the Government Delegate for this initiative.”

Okalia said the initiative has given him and many other Cameroonians the opportunity to be able to savour the different cultures of Cameroon and neigbouring countries in a single venue.

“The culture of a people is the one and only component that differentiates them from others…Thus, a people without a culture are like a people without an identity,” Okalia intimated.

The Governor observed that, in order to sustain the link between the past, present and the future, the young ones must be taught the culture, of which he said the Limbe FESTAC was a veritable ground for such a passage of cultural knowledge from the old to the young.

The Government Delegate to the Limbe City Council that is organising the Festival, promised the mammoth crowd of visitors that they shall, for the next eight days, be guests to a wholesome package of different cultural and arts displays by the different people in Limbe.

“We have reserved a very appetizing menu for you the next eight days,” Motanga said.

The festival shall be made up of the display of traditional dances, arts works from all the Regions of the country with a blend of other folkloric activities. Besides, there shall be a boat ride to the sea, visit to the Slave trade village at Bimbia, a canoe race, and a tug of war, among others.

Several Cameroonian artists, among them, Petit Pays, Ben Decca, Ndedi Eyango, Claudia Dikosso, Ateh Bazore, have also been invited to complement the cultural entertainment package.

The canoe race shall fold up on Saturday, April 9 with a marathon from Idenau to the seafront at Down Beach Limbe. The first winner shall bag home FCFA 1.5 million while the first runner up shall get FCFA 1 million and the third person FCFA 500,000 in both the female and male categories.