OPU Appoints Yomi Fash Cultural Ambassador

As part of efforts to entrench its ideals in Yorubaland and beyond, using popular faces and voices, the Oodua Progressives Union, OPU, has unveiled celebrated crossover actor, Yomi Fash Lanso, as its Cultural Ambassador. The Lagos native was unveiled during the Miss Olokun beauty pageant held recently.

Speaking on the appointment, Otunba Gani Adams, National Coordinator, Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), said, “Yomi Fash Lanso is one of the foremost actors in the Yoruba sector of Nollywood. He has been consistent and dogged in his career. He epitomizes all the qualities we want as an ambassador for the OPU. And we believe he can parlay his popularity for the rejuvenation of our culture and importantly, the betterment of Yorubaland through the OPU.”

He disclosed that the decision to establish the Oodua Progressives Union, OPU, was based on the need to sustain the Yoruba identity. Unlike the OPC which is a self-determination association solely to protect the territorial integrity of Yoruba within the political geography of Nigeria, while the “OPU is a socio-cultural organisation is saddled with the responsibility of rekindling, re-awakening and resuscitating the dying embers of pristine Yoruba cultural values and heritage which are alarmingly heading towards extinction particularly among the Yoruba in the Diaspora.”

Coming barely 10 days after losing his octogenarian mother, Fash-Lanso described the ambassadorial appointment as conforming with his own principles as a Yoruba man and a renowned and respected actor.

“I feel honoured to have been selected as the face of an association with millions of members straddling the entire globe. It shows that one’s efforts as an artiste for the past two decades have not gone unnoticed.”

He said further, “The importance of preserving and promoting our culture and tradition is of enormous responsibility to all of us speaking the Yoruba language because our culture makes us an entity and not a nonentity. I say this because I believe fervently in the adage that a child that neglects his source has inadvertently worn the garland of trouble; a fact I believe is the cause of the troubles bedeviling us as a nation.”