‘OjajaTV in South America is built to tell the African story’

A cultural enthusiast and Coordinator of OjajaTV in South America, Ajoyemi Osunleye has said that Africans in the diaspora must relate with their roots no matter what part of the world they find themselves even as the television station is built to tell the African story.

The Brazilan based Osunleye told National Wire in an interview  about the television station suported and mentored by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the Ojaja II.

“The station started officially February 2017 but the idea actually came in 2016,” he said, adding that, “Mr. Adeyinka Oduniyi who is one of the Directors discussed the idea of the TV channel with me and we both thought of how we can start developing contents from here in South America majorly because we think it is right for us to key into the Ooni’s global vision.”

About his own outfit, Osunleye said his African Pride outfit is a content providing organisation. “We created the ‘African Pride,’ that is the title of our content, our aim is to project anybody, event, place, businesses and so on that project and celebrate ‘The African Pride’”.

Talking about acceptance of the brand in Brazil, Osunleye said the South Americans are at home with the contents. “They are very glad and always enthusiastic about it especially because of the title. “The African Pride” in Portuguese means (Orgulho dá África). Brazil is the second most populated black nation on earth after Nigeria and the blacks are always in need to connect to the true Africa which is their source.”

About the challenges encountered so far, he said “For now we don’t have challenges technically but definitely with funds coming in we can do more things because the demands and expectations is rising by the day especially from the Brazilians. They are eager to see and experience the true Africa, different from what the media projects to them here of hunger and abject poverty which in return do not help their self-esteem as African descendants.

“We focus on any event or person that projects the African pride, although from the start we are trying to present the Ooni of Ife to the Brazilian community and we are working on partnering with media houses here to exchange contents.  But for now we focus on events that help project good image of Africa.

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“Firstly we strategically build our contents because our aim is majorly to project Africans’ true potential, we believe nobody can tell our stories better than us so we are so much attentive to events and things that align with this vision.

“The Ooni is always the first to visit and know about the contents all the time. He monitors all contents to the letter and is always ready to contribute contents as well, he has been a very good ambassador and true African leader any African can be proud of any day,” he said.

Osunleye however noted the support of his wife, a Brazilian on the project. My wife and partner, Carolina Marais has been helpful joining the team in content provision. We have about nine workers who are very committed and hardworking. They are fantastic and I think we have the best team on earth,” he boasted.

The Coordinator of OjajaTV in South America also talked about the Brazilian carnival. “On the carnival, we already built strong relationship with the Ministry of Culture, Rio tour (tourism sector of Rio de Janeiro) and LIESA ( the organizers of Rio Carnaval) and some top samba Schools. We are planning a possibility to feature some Nigerian celebrities to participate in the parade with some samba schools in the main arena,” Osunleye said.

He stated further that, “This will help project and develop the relationship we intend to build. All these events will be filmed and projected in Nigeria also. It is also good for you to know that 90% of the contents in Rio Carnival are African; the music artistes, and everything in line with creativity.  And the shocking reality is that about 70% of these contents are from the Yoruba culture,” he concluded.