The Kwara State Council for Arts and Culture is set to make this year’s Democracy Day celebration a memorable one for residents of the state of harmony as they are already putting together a command performance to mark the 5th anniversary of the state Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatai Ahmed.

he Executive Director of the Council, Comrade Adebisi Abraham Oyewole, stated this to The Herald Arts during an exclusive interview.

In his words, "...we have been informed to actually package a command performance for the day and we are already doing that. Basically, it is our duty at the Kwara State Council for Arts and Culture to do this and we have been doing it year in, year out but I can assure you that this year's performance will linger in the memory of residents of the state."

But the icing on the cake this time around is that some popular faces in Nollywood will also feature in this year's performance.

According to the director this is made possible by the SA to the governor on Arts, Crafts and Tourism, Femi Adebayo. "He is using his position as one of the Nollywood actors to bring some faces from the industry so that they can attract the needed crowd for the program. But basically this is a program for the Kwara State Arts Council, the intention is to lift the patronage of our Council and also showcase our own people here too.

"We also want to develop our people too, we have a lot of people here who are extremely talented and all they need is a little push into the limelight. An example is the tax sensitization we just did. The government commissioned us, through the office of the SA, to package a program to assist the KWIRS. We put up a very wonderful performance, the governor was there and you would see from his face that he really love it. Presently we have taken that play to four locations in Kwara State. So we hope to maintain the tempo and have a monthly performance here too for members of the public."

Asked if the invited Nollywood guest artistes would not want to over shadow members of the Council, the director said "I don't want to believe that because I know the SA will not even allow that in the first instance because it will not be in the best interest of the state. He would know what it is better to develop what we have here because the Nollywood people are already made."

The Council boss further revealed that, "Also, our duties differ, the Kwara Art Council is set up to monitor, develop, research into and execute issues relating to the arts and culture of the state which is not the duty of the Nollywood people, the Arts Council is the custodian of the culture of the people."