Chairman of Oto-Awori LCDA, Prince Musibau Adekunle Asafa has decided to organise a cultural beauty pageant in commemoration of the 50th coronation anniversary celebration of his Royal Majesty, Oba Momodu Afolabi Ashafa, Aladi Onijanikin of Ijanikin Kingdom.

“The essence of the pageant tagged ‘OMOGE ASAFA CULTURAL BEAUTY PAGEANT’ is to encourage young ladies who are between the ages of 18 to 25years to showcase their talents, skills and intelligence,” he said.

According to him, in harnessing culture and tourism development in the council area, the prospect and issues surrounding areas of interest and promotion needs to be taken seriously.

“It will interest you to know that the Council is highly vast in tourism potentials with historic towns and diversified cultural heritage embodying people’s traditions, religion and belief, festivals and ceremonies.

“However, we need to identify these areas of interest and their values in order for us to drive the concept with the needed capacity; since the commencement of Tourism and Heritage Maintenance Unit as a responsibility of all Councils in the State, we have no choice than to look inwards so that these areas of interest can be tapped for revenue generation and development.”

The Tourism Officer, Mrs Keripe Deborah who was optimistic that the potential of tourism and culture abounds in the council area if well tapped. In her statement, she noted with deep responsibility that the approval of the pageant by the chairman is an eye opener in many directions; she explained that the upcoming event will be a continuous one and that all residents regardless of where they come from will partake in it.

“Though, the pageant is organised for communities within Ijanikin in commemoration of the 50th coronation anniversary of Oba Momodu Afolabi Ashafa, we are working on various means that will make sure every towns and communities in the Council area are engaged in other tourism and cultural heritage potential programmes as events unfolds.”

Winner, first runner-up, second runner-up of the beauty pageant will go home with attractive prizes and free Lagos State skill acquisition category of choice with consolation prizes.