Egbaliganza: Shining a Light on Lisabi Festival, the Iconic Egba Cultural Phenomenon
By: Mojeed Olayinka Adenekan
Lisabi Festival, the flagship historic and cultural heritage of the Egba Nation worldwide, which holds every year to celebrate Lisabi Agbongbo Akala, the legendary hero and defender of the ancient Egba Nation, has continued to grow in leaps and bounds since the Festival debuted almost four decades ago.
As a frontline cultural heritage and a unifying symbol of all Egba sons and daughters at home and in the diaspora, Lisabi Festival is a historic cultural event connecting many generations of Egba people back to their roots. For many young Egbas, Egbaliganza is their gateway to understanding and appreciating their cultural roots. Featured as one of the events of the week-long festival, Egbaliganza has become a game-changer for the Lisabi Festival, introducing this historic cultural event to a new generation of young people.
By fusing fashion, entrepreneurship, and creativity, Egbaliganza is connecting the youth with their heritage, making the Lisabi Festival more relevant and exciting than ever. For many of them, the first sets of images and audio-visuals from Egbaliganza were their first introduction to Lisabi Festival. To them, that’s what the Lisabi Festival is all about. There is a need to consolidate this connecting pathway as a leverage to further deepen their interest and educate them on Egba culture as a whole.
The fusion of fashion, entrepreneurship, and creativity is a match made in heaven for young people in this tech era. Here’s why: Fashion is a powerful medium for self-expression, and entrepreneurship allows young people to turn their passions into careers. Creativity is the driving force behind innovative designs, making it a perfect blend.Many young entrepreneurs are drawn to sustainable fashion, using eco-friendly materials and practices to make a positive impact.
By promoting the Egba indigenous textiles and the local industry, this combination appeals to their desire to make a difference. What of the digital opportunities and potentials? The tech era has opened up new avenues for creative minds and fashion entrepreneurs, from e-commerce and social media marketing to digital design and virtual fashion shows.
For young people, Egbaliganza sits at the heart of their appeal to innovation and experimentation. The intersection of fashion and tech enables young creatives to experiment with new materials, technologies, and business models, pushing boundaries and creating new trends.Creativity and fashion entrepreneurship foster a sense of community, with young designers supporting and inspiring each other through collaborations, pop-up events, and online forums.
HUBANE, an avant-garde label using recycled materials to create innovative designs, is one of the inspiring examples for the Nigerian youths in the fashion industry. It’s certain Egbaliganza has already inspired many, too!As a headline event of Lisabi Festival, Egbaliganza’s innovative approach stands as a testament to its significance as a key driver of cultural and economic growth for Egbaland, with local artisans, designers, entrepreneurs, and tourists benefiting from the event’s visibility.
This impact can be attributed to Egbaliganza’s multidimensional structure, which includes symbolic fashion, economic empowerment, youth inclusion, heritage monument development, and Pan-African collaboration.
Aare (Dr.) Lai Labode, the Founder/Convener of the Afroliganza & Egbaliganza Movement, envisions Egbaliganza as a catalyst for transforming Egbaland into a creative and cultural hub, with a 50-year development plan to make Abeokuta a global destination for African culture and fashion.Not only has Egbaliganza promoted Egba culture but also contributed to the preservation of traditional crafts, such as coral bead-making and indigenous textile weaving.
The event’s emphasis on local resources and community engagement has inspired a sense of ownership and pride among young people of Egba stock, both at home and in the diaspora.It would be remiss not to acknowledge the events of recent weeks, especially the negative narratives in certain quarters to discredit Egbaliganza.
A coordinated attempt was made to fracture the relationship between Egbaliganza and the broader Egba traditional establishment. The campaign was driven, sources confirmed, by individuals who were once welcomed into this movement, benefited from its platform, and upon departure chose betrayal over dignity. The Egba people have seen this pattern before. And as they have always done, they have handled it the Egba way internally, decisively, and with the full authority of the institution.
Our revered father, His Royal Majesty, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, the Alake & Paramount Ruler of Egbaland and the Egba Traditional Council have been actively engaged throughout. Egba has a time-honoured way of resolving its affairs, and that process has run its course. A unity press conference is being planned, bringing together the Egbaliganza team and the broader Egba leadership to present a united front, because that is what Egba people do. They disagree, they deliberate, and they emerge as one. These are testaments affirming the uniqueness of Egba’s enduring historic cultural legacy.
Egbaliganza is indeed a strategic hook for drawing wider global attention to Lisabi Festival among Egba indigenes and non-Egbas alike. The event is both a shining light on Lisabi Festival and a leverage for Lisabi Festival and Egbaland in general, especially in the rapidly evolving era of youthful digital natives. With young people increasingly becoming more interested and reconnecting with their cultural roots, Egbaliganza offers immense benefits to the Lisabi Festival in no small measure.
Digital-savvy youths embracing Lisabi Festival means opportunity to leverage digital platforms for the long-term preservation of our shared historic heritage, making it more accessible and engaging for many generations. Intergenerational storytelling is also a rising popular culture among young people nowadays. Young people are turning to elders for wisdom, recording tales of village life, love, and family recipes, and sharing them on social media and podcasts. Making Lisabi Festival endearing to the youths means more of them will become custodians of our authentic history and be able to pass the same down to their own children and children’s children.
There is also cultural revival with traditional crafts, music, and art being reimagined with modern twists, making them more relatable and appealing to younger audiences.Digital tools like 3D imaging and virtual reality- an ecosystem predominantly filled by the younger generation-are being used to preserve cultural heritage sites and artifacts. This is the kind of leverage Egbaliganza envisions to future-proof Lisabi Festival as a transgenerational cultural heritage.
More young people are eager to learn about and celebrate their cultural roots, and they’re using innovative ways to do so, underscoring how increasingly cultural heritage is gaining resonance among today’s youthful population. To leave them behind is to cut off a significant population of potential future custodians of cultural heritage as Egba people.As Lisabi Festival continues to grow, it’s clear that Egbaliganza is not a selfish initiative; it is a laudable cultural movement that’s redefining the narrative of Egba’s rich legacy, cultural heritage, and its pride of place on the world map.
Adenekan is a Youth and Cultural Affairs Analyst, and he contributes this piece from Abeokuta.