No fewer than 144 students from the Department of Sociology and Social Work from the University of Lagos ( Unilag) , on Saturday had a tour of tourism sites in Ile-Ife, Osun.
Some of the students told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) after the excursion that it was meant to expose them to the culture, tradition, heritage sites of the ancient city.
They said it would help them to appreciate and further understand what ‘ Inter Group Relations’ an aspect of their course in school was really about.
NAN reports that the students were taken on tour of the National Museum, the Ooni’s Palace, Ile Ase, Oranmiyan, Oduduwa, Moremi groves and a host of other tourists’ destinations.
One of the students, Favour Yinka-Ojo, said that the visit to the ancient city had satisfied her curiosity to know more about the town.
Yinka-Ojo said that she had been able to clear her doubts and ascertained that those stories about the ancient city were actually true and not false or jokes as she had thought in the past.
The undergraduate who was amased at the tradition and culture of Ife advised tour operators to intensify efforts in projecting the city as a tourism hub for both local and international tourists.
Another student, Moyosore Odugbesan, said that everything she had seen at the museum and within the palace had complimented everything she was taught in school.
” Truly seeing is believing, we can now relate these things to our junior colleagues in school to create the thirst in them to know more of the linkages that exist between Ife and other parts of the country.
Dr Augustine Agugua, a lecturer in the University and the course convener of the tour said that the students were meant to understudy the linkages existing between Ife and other places in the country.
He said that the ancient city occupied significant cultural linkages in the history of Nigeria and Yoruba race.
