My Aim Is To Build A Unique, Unified World-class Cultural Platform, Through Pan-Afrika Drum Festival -Prince Segun Akanni

Prince Segun Akanni

 

 

Prince Segun Akanni, the publisher of the Drum Online newspaper, has disclosed that the next edition of Pan-African Drum Festival in Canada next year would be more elaborate in terms of quality of participants and celebration of culture and tradition.

The maiden edition of the festival was held in Mississauga Canada, last year July 28th.

Akanni spoke to some journalists on the success of the first edition of the Drum festival in Canada in June 2023, and plans he is making to improve on the first edition’s results.

 

 

 

Tell us about the success of the first edition of Ayangalu Drum Festival that you hosted in Canada.

The first edition was massively celebrated by Nigerian-Canadians, the Africans, Canadians, Europeans and a lot of people from different parts of the world. It was more successful than what we expected. In the caliber of people that attended the event, and how the event went.

My target was just to start it in a small way. I never expected it was going to snowball into that kind of a big, carnival-like event. Because our projection was to have about 100 people, but the attendance we had on that day was much. People came in a large number and they enjoyed themselves.

The event was very successful with goodwill messages from the Canadian Prime Minister, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; Premier of Ontario, Hon. Doug Ford; Nigeria Ambassador to Canada, Ambassador Adeyinka Asekun; Mayor of Brampton, Hon. Patrick Brown; Canadian Secretary of State and Former Minister Of Immigration, Hon Gerry Weiner; Arole Oodua, Oba Ogunwusi Babatunde Adeyeye, the Ooni of Ife; Osun State governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke; The Olota of Otta Awori Kingdom, His Imperial Majesty, Oba (Prof) Adeyemi Abdulkabir Obalanlege; Councilor Ayo Owodunni, the Oniba of Iba, among other eminent personalities. The guests had fun and experienced the real Yoruba, Nigeria and African culture to the fullest.