The National Council for Arts and Culture ( NCAC), is set to roll out facemasks and hand sanitizers to help stop the spread of the covid-19 pandemic.
This is in response to Government growing concerns about certain breaches of covid 19 protocols, particularly on the dedicated use of facemasks and sanitizers to Clean the hands.
The face masks both medical and conventional will be made from local adire and Ankara fabrics embossed with NCAC logo to check imitation and also to showcase home grown solutions to demands for the kits.
While the hand sanitizers exclusively made from local natural resources.
The Director General, NCAC, Otunba Segun Runsewe says the measures are part of well thought out interventions that would help bridge the gap in the demands and needs to ensure no one finds excuse to breach the covid 19 protocols.
” We shall be targeting the culture tourism community, the media, the security agencies at the frontline of the battle to the successful and full compliance of the lockdown and also the medical professionals.” Otunba Runsewe explained.
Describing the initiative as a necessity and response to exploit the huge cultural resources in Nigeria, Otunba Runsewe noted that covid 19 pandemic had provided Nigeria a great opportunity to look inwards for the production of relevant kits and accessories made exclusively in Nigeria and which would meet with export standards and health protocols.
” We cannot just sit down and expect help from outside the country all the time. We should respond to this challenge by looking inwards and creatively discover certain benefits in our cultural endowment, support the process of indigenous response to all health challenges not just covid 19 pandemic, Runsewe further clarified, adding that necessity is the mother of all inventions around the world.”
” Ours is not only to support government directives that Nigerians should wear facemasks in public places, but to develop a determined basic cultural socioeconomic baseline to the effective use and engagement of local fabrics and natural resources to which Nigeria is well blessed, Otunba Runsewe stated further.
The NCAC under Runsewe has made the use of local fabrics, arts and crafts as the fulcrum of a new and emerging cultural economy.
“Indeed, NCAC has promoted a proudly and exclusively Nigerian cultural products since the advent of Buhari administration.”
