30th July, 2016
It was indeed a night of glamour which culminated in the official launch of ‘One Lagos’ brand by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Friday night.
The One Lagos brand is a three-day event which kicked off on 27 July and ended on the night of 29 July at the Lagos Bar Beach, Victoria Island, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria. Friday night was the climax of the event which witnessed arrays of musical artistes and over 20,000 fun lovers.
Friday night was the grand finale and the launch of the One Lagos brand. The ‘One Lagos’ brand is meant to showcase the true spirit of Lagos through different creative expressions while leveraging on the city’s abundant soft power in an attempt to celebrate the people, places and the unique heritage of Lagos.
The brand was officially launched by Ambode, who was represented by Senator Gbenga Ashafa who did the countdown before the beautiful fireworks display.
The launch was anchored by top celebrity comedian, AY alongside Jimmy and the ever blazing Dadaboy Ehiz. Dj Neptune and Dj Caise were on the wheels of steel treating the audience to amazing jams back to back to keep the crowd entertained.
The mission of the brand launch was to further push the new Lagos Agenda and promote the true spirit of Lagos telling different stories through the various forms of expressions-music, exhibitions, dance, comedy, and food.
According to the Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Art and Culture, Folorunso Folarin-Coker, the ‘One Lagos’ brand was conceived to drive economic growth across all communities in Lagos by ensuring that government takes advantage of the robust population of the State, its density, wealth and culture by focusing attention on community consumption to grow and deepen Lagos tourism assets.
Folarin-Coker said the rationale behind the event was to further bring the diverse multi-cultural heritage of Africa’s largest mega-city to the forefront and show case the vibrant energy of its people.
Event activities kicked off with the unveiling of the children play ground, bouncing castles and games, among several other entertainment shows to the delight of school children who thronged the Bar Beach venue of the three-day entertainment-packed event.
The three-day event is expected to continue on a monthly basis until the celebration of Lagos State @ 50 and beyond.
However, the Friday event ran all through the night till Saturday morning as thousands of fun lovers partied all through.
According to Folarin-Coker, the One Lagos brand is the Ministry of Tourism initiative using entertainment and hospitality to drive tourism. “At the beginning of Ambode’s government, he said he was going to run an inclusive government where nobody will be left behind, so you can see the philosophy behind the One Lagos event. It is a tourism initiative to drive tourism using entertainment,” he said.
“The global economy has a huge problem, in Nigeria, we are dealing with lower price for oil and lower production, so our income at the centre is lower and what comes to the state is even lower. We don’t have choice anymore; we must invest in an alternative economy and alternative income. What do we have here? We have music, film; our film industry is number two in the world, we have a population of 22 million, so why don’t we grow our internal economy rather than waiting for oil revenue? The cost of this may look high but it is well controlled by the governor,” he added.
“Lagos will be 50 on 27th of May next year. Every 27th of each month, we try to do something to build awareness, we don’t just want to bring out the drum on the 27th of May next year and say we are celebrating; we are building awareness. For a state of 22 million people, it is a long process to entertain and include everybody in this thing,” he explained.