Cuba’s ambassador to Nigeria, Clara Pulido, has said that African culture, especially Nigerian and Yoruba culture, has been prioritized by the Cuban government to honor ancestors from the continent by providing a network of museums dedicated to African culture.
Pulido said the honor was for the development brought by the African ancestors who arrived in the Caribbean in a terrible situation during the period of slavery. She made the statement during the Eunic Cluster celebration to honor Yoruba culture in Abuja on Wednesday.
“In the case of Cuba, a network of museums is dedicated to African culture to honor the ancestors. the ancestors who reached a very terrible state and later made a tremendous contribution to the development of the Kuban until today and tomorrow,” she said.
The Cuban ambassador stated that the Cuban government has created a park in the country’s capital, Havana, named after African heroes, including a tree effigy of Nigeria’s founding fathers, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo.
“In Havana, we have a park called African Heroes Park where there are many images of the founding fathers, in the case of Nigeria, a tree image of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikwe and Obafemi Awolowo expresses Nigerian unity; in this regard, in Cuba, we respect African culture as well as Nigerian culture, and Yoruba as part of Nigerian culture.
“The influence of Yoruba culture in the Americas is one of the expressions of the African reach in the Americas; it is not only the Yoruba culture, but other cultures from Africa, especially from Nigeria, that also has a very strong influence in the case of Cuba and many other cases in our continent,” she said.
The President of the European National Institute for Culture, Eunic Cluster Nigeria, Eva Verta, from the Spanish embassy, stated that the group works on projects of common interest that are part of the European Union’s cultural diplomacy.
According to her, there was a particular call for the projects to work cross-regionally, and they were very specific projects in which they had partners from Latin America currently working on projects in Nigerian museums, with four Nigerian museum representatives going to European museums. .
“Cluster and research work for cultural projects that we think we are interested in. We are planning to organize these types of events every year, however, we are now focusing on these museum projects. It continues since 2019 and will continue until next year,” she said.
