Adeyinka Olaiya, Editor-at-Large, Sao Paulo/
The carnival week in Brazil is raking in an estimated $2billion into the nation’s coffers, NewsmakersNG has learnt while covering the events live in the Latin American country.
According to Brazil’s national research committee on tourism, the 2020 Brazil festival of arts and culture will earn the nation a record-breaking profit of over $2 billion (over N727billion) in just 3 days.
Before the opening, the carnival had registered over 15 million tourists in 3 carnival states of the federation, namely: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Bahia, and more tourists have been arriving daily, with hotels and carnival accommodations fully booked.
NewsmakersNG also learnt that tourists from across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa trooped in with millions of dollars and Euros, and huge financial supports from international authorities and governments were also received by several carnival colleges and groups. It’s meant to boost Brazil and the cause of oneness around the globe through the carnival celebrations. Television transmission rights are offered to over 144 countries around the globe at expensive rates, advertisements and commercial boosts at high rates, carnival products, and costumes are highly patronized during the carnival period, museums, art exhibitions and tourist centres in the whole country are patronized in full force during the festivities.
Brazil which celebrates its cultural and religious affiliations with that of the African people is still the largest black nation out of Africa. Its annual carnival is an event that unites the nation and the entire world in terms of culture, language, tradition and religion.
Considered the country with the highest number of Yoruba traditional shrines in the world, Brazil has since launched a massive crusade towards promoting the culture, tradition and the religion of the Yoruba people, these are easily described in several of the Brazilian dailies, the language and the religious semblance in alliance with those of the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin.
Marcos Adalgisa, a PhD holder in African Philosophy, lecturer, researcher, and tutor of the Yoruba traditional religion at the University of Sao Paulo, said: “There should be clear and correct documentation of the Yoruba history and tradition. It will help give a correct interpretation of the Yoruba culture, tradition and religion to the coming generation. Ifa is the science of life.”
The Brazilian professor, who claimed to have also taught Ifa divinity in several universities in Brazil and around the world, however, suggested that Nigeria should repeat the FESTAC 77 events, the commemoration which united the whole world on cultural reasons in Nigeria about 43 years ago.
According to the state carnival research committee, important people, Astros and world leaders donate millions of dollars to carnival colleges to buy self-recognition. The actual president of Equatorial Guinea in Africa, Teodoro Obiang Nkiema Mbasogo once donated millions of dollars to a carnival college in São Paulo to promote his international acceptance. His sculptural statue was placed outside the college to pay homage to the dictator.
Japan, the United Arab Emirates, USA and the European Union are known to have given constant financial supports to the carnival schools and parades.
The annual carnival in Brazil is considered a world event and the whole world spends money to encourage its success annually.