The Eyo Festival is not merely ceremony or spectacle; it is one of Lagos’ most underleveraged cultural assets. With deliberate calendarisation, sponsorship and professional destination strategy, Eyo could sit alongside the world’s most bankable cultural tourism events.
Lagos Island, I Remember
I remember Lagos Island in 1973. We would sit on the cement floor of 53 Olushi Street at dawn, waking to the sound of panegyrics drifting through the streets. Eyos from different Iga houses were already on parade, white-robed figures moving in disciplined joy, accompanied by talking drums, horns and chants that carried both celebration and history.
At some point, I remember one of my aunties pointing me toward a particular group of Eyos and saying, “Iga Aiyeomosan, Eyo ile Funsho niyen”, those are the Eyos representing your father’s family Iga. As they moved, they serenaded us, staging what felt to me then like something magical. The voices of the men behind the masks were different, layered, unfamiliar, and they offered ancestral prayers as they passed, prayers that carried history, duty and belonging through the street.
It was more than spectacle. It was memory being rehearsed in public. The splendor stayed with me — the dancing, the food, the laughter that spilled across the length and breadth of the city. Long after the music faded, the feeling remained. It still does. That is the power of the Eyo Festival.
And yet, even as anticipation builds again, diasporas booking flights and the world watching, Lagos has still not fully reckoned with what Eyo truly is: not just a cultural event, but a world-class destination economy asset hiding in plain sight.
What Makes Eyo Different — and Why It Matters
The Eyo Festival, first recorded in Lagos on February 20, 1854, is not an annual carnival. It is convened only for moments of deep communal and historical significance, to honor distinguished Lagosians and state personalities who shaped the city and its people.
Participants, dressed in flowing white agbada and hats, emerge from recognized Iga houses, parading the streets in ritual procession, music and dance, chanting ancestral praise poetry that affirms lineage, duty and belonging.
According to historical documentation by A. Ajayi, R.O. Ajetunmobi and S.A. Akindele in A History of the Awori of Lagos State (1998), the Eyo tradition is inseparable from the evolution of Lagos itself, from precolonial times through colonial administration, Nigeria’s independence and Lagos’ role as the former federal capital.
Few festivals anywhere in the world are so deeply tied to the political, cultural and civic formation of a modern city.
That uniqueness is Eyo’s advantage, and its missed opportunity.
Lagos, Culture and the Economics of Place
Lagos has always been more than a city. It is an idea. As a former federal capital, Lagos naturally became a stage for national milestones. The Eyo Festival was performed to commemorate historic moments and to honor figures such as Nnamdi Azikiwe and other nationalist leaders. It was even staged during the visit of the British monarch.
The Oba of Lagos, as custodian of the tradition, alongside the Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture and relevant local government institutions, deserves recognition for sustaining this heritage, often under tight timelines and limited resources. But stewardship alone is no longer enough.
At a moment when the Lagos State Government is explicitly prioritizing tourism, the creative economy and global visibility, the Eyo Festival remains underleveraged, especially when compared to how other cities treat their cultural assets.
Lessons From Elsewhere: How Cities Sweat Culture
Consider Lubbock, Texas, known primarily for Texas Tech University and college football. Lubbock also happens to be the birthplace of rock-and-roll legend Buddy Holly. Rather than letting that history fade, the city invested in it, anchoring redevelopment around the Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences.
That single cultural investment triggered hotels, restaurants, bars and residential development. It repositioned Lubbock as a music and entertainment destination and added millions of dollars annually to its local tax economy. This is what branded destination strategy looks like: culture treated as infrastructure.
Or consider the CIAA collegiate basketball tournament. Since relocating its in-person games to Baltimore in 2022 (after a virtual run in 2021), the tournament has generated over $100 million in cumulative economic impact by mid-2025 for Visit Baltimore and local businesses, hotels, transportation providers, restaurants and vendors, securing the city’s role as host through 2029.
Festivals, when structured deliberately, are not expenses. They are economic engines.
The Global Context Lagos Cannot Ignore
The World Tourism Organization consistently reports that cultural tourism is among the fastest-growing segments of global travel. In the United States alone, travel and tourism contributed $2.36 trillion to GDP in 2023, about 7.0% of the economy, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Even newer destination markets understand this logic.
The Lagos State Government’s decision to host the all-electric E1 Powerboat Championship in October 2025, projecting over $100 million in economic impact, signals that the state recognizes the value of global events as economic multipliers.
But here is the contradiction: Eyo is already Lagos’ most powerful cultural signal, and it is barely marketed.
The Strategic Case for Calendarizing Eyo
Tradition need not be violated for strategy to exist. The Eyo Festival does not “just come out.” Its last outing was in 2017. But that very rarity makes it more valuable, not less.
A biennial calendar, once every two years, would preserve the sanctity of the tradition while allowing the world to plan around it. December 27, already culturally recognized, could anchor the festival on the global calendar of major cultural events.
Calendarization unlocks everything: global tourism planning, airline and hotel partnerships, media scheduling, sponsorship commitments, and inclusion in international cultural tourism circuits.
Without a date, there is no market. Without a market, there is no scale.
Funding, Sponsorship and Serious Intent
At present, the Eyo Festival has no headline sponsor.
That alone explains its limitations. World-class festivals are not funded ad hoc. They are capitalized deliberately. Imagine “Eyo 2025, Presented by Globacom.” A culturally rooted brand already invested in Ojude Oba, Ofala and other heritage platforms. The Eyo Festival deserves equal ambition.
Consider “Eyo 2025, Sponsored by FirstBank.” The symbolic alignment is obvious. FirstBank’s history is inseparable from Lagos’ commercial evolution.
Funding is not about commercialization. It is about capacity: production quality, security, documentation, international media coverage, visitor experience and legacy planning.
Without funding, Eyo remains ceremonial. With funding, it becomes strategic.
Beyond One Day: Sweating the Asset
Eyo cannot be a one-day event. Global destination festivals operate in arcs: pre-event activations (exhibitions, lectures, fashion, food and history), the main procession, and post-event programming (concerts, tourism extensions and diaspora engagement).
This expands impact across hotels, transport, food vendors, fashion, music and creative industries, Afrobeats included.
A conservative target of $375 million in direct and indirect spend per festival cycle is not unrealistic when benchmarked against comparable cultural events globally.
Policy or Partnership, But Not Drift
Two paths exist. One is policy-led: Lagos State must assert leadership, deploy capital and assemble the expertise required to steward Eyo as a strategic asset.
The other is a carefully structured public-private partnership, governed by clear MOUs that respect traditional custodianship while enabling professional execution.
What cannot continue is drift.
A Quiet Call to Action
Lagos has numbers, a marketer’s dream: over 22 million residents and an estimated 1.3 million daily visitors. Whatever Lagos commits to, Lagos amplifies.
Eyo ties together culture, history, economy and identity in a way few festivals can. It deserves the same seriousness Lagos now applies to global sporting and innovation events.
The next step is not rhetoric. It is a formal feasibility and destination-branding study, followed by a policy roundtable convened at the highest level of state leadership.
Lagos has grown into the creative, dynamic city we know and love. The Eyo Festival reminds us who we have always been, and who we could still become.
