{"id":308920,"date":"2025-10-16T20:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/308920\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T20:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:19:11","slug":"nigerian-independence-day-celebrates-culture-on-the-first-coast-free-press-of-jacksonville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/308920\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian Independence Day Celebrates Culture on the First Coast \u2013 Free Press of Jacksonville"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" title=\"bandele1f\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bandele1f-678x381.jpg\" class=\"lazyload\"\/><br \/>\nShown in attendance from (L-R) Bandele Onasanya, Councilman Dr. Rahman Johnson, Miss Makaela Obi and her Mom Mrs. Obi.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/bandele1f-300x300.jpg\" data- class=\"wp-image-90740 size-medium lazyload\"\/>Shown in attendance from (L-R) Bandele Onasanya, Councilman Dr. Rahman Johnson, Miss Makaela Obi and her Mom Mrs. Obi.<\/p>\n<p>For more than 35 years, the Association of Nigerians in Jacksonville has celebrated their country\u2019s independence. Nigeria gained her Independence Day on October 1st, 1960, from the United Kingdom. This occasion is done all over the world with cultural displays and civil engagements.<\/p>\n<p>The annual local celebration on the First Coast brought together 500+ Nigerians and cultural activists inside the Christ International Church in Arlington for a day of culture, business, heritage and contributions to the Jacksonville community.\u00a0\u00a0Local dignitaries, friends and business associates were in attendance to speak on the association\u2019s connection and traceable roots to Nigeria\u2019s homeland. The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the Proclamation from Mayor Donna Deegan. The mayoral proclamation declared October 1st as Nigerian Independence Day, declaring it a to reflect on the values of freed, resilience and hope, while encouraging cultural awareness and mutual respect across Jacksonville\u2019s diverse city.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIt was a happy event with all the African nations within Nigerian\u2019s diaspora celebrating our culture and connections,\u201d said organizer Bandele Onasanya.<\/p>\n<p>On its Independence Day, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu declared that the \u201cworst is over\u201d following a series of painful economic reforms that have left millions struggling with rising costs and deepening poverty. The president said the government had disbursed $222.90 million to eight million vulnerable households under its social investment program and was expanding infrastructure across rails, roads, airports and seaports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shown in attendance from (L-R) Bandele Onasanya, Councilman Dr. Rahman Johnson, Miss Makaela Obi and her Mom Mrs.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":308921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-308920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115385700917758317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}