OPC(R) advises FG on palliative, seeks approval for public holiday

Oodua People’s Congress reformed OPC(R) has called on the Federal and state governments to declare August 20 as a public holiday for the tradition and culture practitioners. This call was made on Friday…….during a press briefing at the OPC R secretariat in Akowonjo area of Lagos State.

The OPC boss, Chief Dare Adesope  said it will be just for the government to accord traditionalists the privilege accorded the Muslims and Christian.

According to him, traditional religion is not alien to Nigeria in fact other religions came to meet the tradition practitioners in Yoruba land and across the nation. It will not be too good to neglect them because they also perform their civic right whenever the government needs them to do so.

‘’Although, there have been several demands made known to the state government requesting for holiday by the traditional practitioners but some set of groups are working against it owing to their own selfish interest. ‘This is a call out to seek justice for the traditional institution. We want the government to declare August 20 of every year a public holiday for the traditional religion’’.                                         

We all came out in mass to campaign and vote for our amiable president, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu because we believe he is the right person to lead the country owing to his vast experience in politics.

As regards the present situation of the country, the OPC boss said ‘We all know that the economy is not friendly now but we should learn how to endure it as we understand that the president meant well for Nigerians when he removed the fuel subsidy.  I want to seek the indulgence of the president to design a method where the palliative will go to the appropriate sectors. ‘I will suggest that the palliative is being disbursed through commercial banks so that people in the informal sector who do not have bank accounts will open one by this action, the government will get more data from the informal sector.

As much as we are ready to endure the current hardship, we are also using the medium to seek the presidential audience to consider the traditionalists in the area of public holiday by giving them Aug 20. Nigeria is a multi-Religion country but just two religions, majorly Christianity and Islam were given holidays while the traditional practitioners have been denied this right for lengthy years. We are calling out to the government to correct this and put them in the proper area where their festival would be recognized.