MY CITY IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA TO HOST YORUBA MOVIE ACADEMY AWARDS.

Meeting the Oyo state Commissioner for Tourism Princess Adeyemi

Laface further stated that film entries for this year’s edition of YMAA have already opened from April 8 and will close on April 21, 2013. These include films released in Nigeria and the Diaspora while film entries in DVD format are to be submitted to the Oyo State Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Agodi, Ibadan, BCOS and Zmirage’s head office at 285, Ikorodu Road, Maryland, Lagos. YMAA 2013 is collaboration between Yoruba Movie Awards Limited, Oyo State Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and BCOS.

Yoruba Nollywood stars at Bisi Komolafe's funeral.

I live in Ibadan, which is the capital of Oyo state, Nigeria. In fact, Ibadan is the largest city in West Africa and my dad was once Governor of Oyo state and a state commissioner 3 times here. Now comes word that we are hosting the Yoruba movie OSCARS! Yoruba is the language of 1/3 of Nigeria and unique to the South-West. The Yoruba movie industry is a budding, flourishing business that I was introduced to after a tragedy where one of it's rising stars Bisi Komolafe died suddenly on New Year's eve 2012.

At her funeral, I interviewed several stars who I had no knowledge of partly because I wasn't a movie fan in general at Hollywood, Nollywood or Bollywood. Many of them include Taiwo Hassan (Ogogo), Fathia Balogun, Funke Akindele, Remi Oshodi and more. Below is a video of the funeral coverage. Back to the movie awards, the Government of Oyo State led by Senator Abiola Ajimobi has won the hosting rights to the most glamorous and much-coveted media event in the Yoruba movie industry, Yoruba Movie Academy Awards (YMAA) 2013.

This is in line with Senator Ajimobi’s efforts in leading the campaign to complement the efforts of the practitioners in the Yoruba movie industry in the propagation and promotion of Yoruba culture and race worldwide. The overwhelming success of the Yoruba movie industry globally and the pacesetter nature of Oyo State as the custodian of the rich Yoruba culture and tradition is without doubt significant hence the need to use the emotional and social connect of Yoruba movies as a catalyst to transform the culture and tourism industry in the state.

According to the executive producer of YMAA, Laface Oshinibosi, this year’s YMAA, a celebration of creativity, will be a major showstopper as glitz meets glamour. He therefore calls for the support of the Yoruba movie industry stakeholders and the general public, as all roads lead to the new and transformed city of Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, for the awards ceremony next month.

With files from Sun News