Mr. Steve Ayorinde, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, in an exclusive interview with TheNewsGuru spoke on Governor Ambode’s vision to revitalize entertainment, tourism and sports in Lagos State.
In his words:” Entertainment and development of the art will continue to be an integral part of the vision of this administration, because that is probably one of the two or three sectors in the world that may not ever witness recession, because no matter how bad the economy is people will still look for things to give them succor, go to concerts, theatres even if it is free. It is incumbent on the government therefore to continue to encourage such a sector not just because it is necessary but because without the sector being there the danger for the society is better imagined.”
He further emphasized on Governor Ambode’s dream to make Lagos a preferred destination when it comes to tourism and the arts. ” The vision is to establish Lagos family as the preferred destination in terms of tourism, hub of creative economy in Africa, home to Nollywood, biggest hip-hop industry in Africa and biggest stand-up comedy in Africa. Our aim is to continue to support the industry so that it can continue to be the number one job creator in the state and in the country. The amount of resources that the creative sector controls is huge, which is why we have in our budget the construction of cinemas in all the five divisions of the state as well as to start work on five new stadia across the divisions. The youth population is growing, without sufficient jobs you don’t want to add to the challenges at hand by not providing for the future.
“We just had the Rasheed Gbadamosi expo and one of the defining element of that expo is the fact even student were part of it – from all our tertiary institutions, Yabatech, LASU, UNILAG, LASPOTECH – setting the creative ones among them as an example to others to emphasise that there are so many other things that they can do that will be beneficial to them and the society other than hanging out on the street and creating havoc” he added.