"The disease has seriously taken a toll on the festival," Sikiru Ayedun, Osun State Tourism Commissioner, told Anadolu Agency in an interview.
"That is because we are looking at a situation whereby every year we grow the attendance of people coming for our festival in the state," he said.
"Last year we had between 10,000 and 20,000 visitors, including devotees, tourists from abroad and celebrants," Ayedun recalled.
He said the Ebola outbreak shut the door against foreign attendants and gravely reduced the size of attendants.
"This effect is not just for the government," asserted the tourism commissioner.
"The hospitality industry, cuisine providers, artists and memorabilia artisans who ought to make money are all affected," he noted.
"But we appeal to the people to bear with us because it is better for us to be healthy than to create a wealth that would put us in crisis," insisted the official.
He said the state government hopes to heighten its drive for foreign investors in the Osun Osogbo festival, a significant part of which is the mass visit to the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove, designated a world heritage site since 2005.
The festival began a few days back and would climax on Friday with the Arugba, the calabash-bearing virgin votary maid, leading sons and daughters of the ancient town, dignitaries and royals to pay homage at the Grove.
Celebrated every August Osun Oosgbo deifies the presumed magical powers of the spirits resident in the Grove and the Osun river goddess in the heart of the town, said to be over 600 years old.
Fishing and hunting, among other things, are barred within the Grove, a Nigerian national monument that was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005.
The southwest Osun State is home to over thousands tourist sites, including the Opa Oranmiyan found in Ile Ife, the ancestral home of the Yoruba, one of Nigeria's three major ethnic stocks.
The Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) sponsored Thursday a program at the palace of the town monarch, the Ataoja, to teach culture to the children and award those who triumphed at different cultural contests.
NTDC chairman Sally Mbanefo said the federal government is working hard to sustain and promote the festival.
Dancing to local music sang after the Osun deity, Mbanefo pledged government's commitment to continue to support the festival in order for it to serve as "a veritable channel to promote and market Nigeria's cultural heritage." Source:turkishweekly
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