Overview
This festival is held at the Osun- Osogbo Sacred Grove Forest, a UNESCO world heritage site and has been one of the most outstanding and preserved cultural practices of the various festivals in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, a mark of the bond that was established six centuries ago. The Osun-Osogbo Festival is a traditional tribal festival from the Yoruba people, held to honor the river goddess, Osun.
Precisely, every August, a grand and colourful festival is organized at the ‘Osun Sacred Grove’ in Osogbo. This draws tens of thousands of believers and tourists from both inside and outside the country to pray and sacrifice to the goddess Osun. The Osun devotees dress traditionally in white cloths and believe that the River goddess brings divine favour and has healing and fertility powers.
This festival, with its international status, has become a major tourist attraction. Observations over the years have shown that the festive period is about the best time to see the city as people parade the streets in their colours. The people look forward to it with great expectation and for the period that it lasts, procession, dance, art exhibition, and colourful carnivals are major attractions of the Osun Oshogbo cultural festival.
The event over the years, has given residents and tourists the opportunity to recreate socially, culturally, as they re-enact one of their renowned age-long spiritual and communal feast.