By Mike Oboh
The National Council of Arts and Culture (NCAC) planned to honour Leicester City Football club and Nigeria striker, Kelechi Iheanacho for his show of a powerful and fascinating merger between culture and sports.
Iheanacho showed beneath the pomp, glitz and glamour when his club defeated Chelsea Football club to lift the English FA cup, displayed a unique, spectacular and outstanding show of patriotism when he soaked his love for Nigeria,
The Director General of NCAC, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe said in Abuja that the decision of the player to fully wrap in Nigerian green-white-green national colour and carried on his head, a cultural basket of victory to celebrate his club’s success in Nigeria cultural way was worth applauding.
Runsuwe said for this, the NCAC have put in place a plan to graphically immortalize the heroic and patriotic feat with call for entries from Nigeria visual artists to creatively represent the quintessential Iheanacho on stage with the Nigeria colour as enacted during the English FA Cup final.
He said the best three entries shall win awards which will be presented to the ministers of Information and Culture and his counterpart in sports.
He also said the winning entries will be exhibited in Ekiti State at the 2021 National Festival of Arts and Culture (EKITI NAFEST 2021) just as the artistic work will also go into the hall of fame and Arts Gallery as a living memory of Ihenacho’s metaphor of the merger between sports and culture.
Runsewe said the council was in collaboration with the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) Abuja chapter, in instituting an art contest that will celebrate the intersection of sports and culture, referencing the Iheanacho’s celebration with the Nigeria flag.
He said it is open to traditional 2D art( painting, print making and drawing)and it is open for one month.
Runsewe said there is the need to celebrate the positive aspect of the country.
