By Favour Nnabugwu

The yuletide season has come to life in Lagos with the 2021 Zenith Bank Christmas Light-Up ceremony, which held at the Ajose Adeogun Street Roundabout, Victoria Island, Lagos at the weekend.

With the theme “Let There Be Light”, this year marks the 15th edition of the traditional Light-up Ceremony at the Ajose Adeogun Roundabout. Following the onset of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which stopped the annual event from holding last year, this year’s ceremony is indeed a momentous and significant one as it signals the return of what could be described as a spectacle that has come to be recognised by Nigerians as an iconic place and tourist attraction because of the beautiful decorations adorning the length and breadth of Ajose Adeogun Street – home to Zenith Bank’s Headquarters,  during the yuletide season.

The official lighting ceremony, which was performed by the Group Managing Director/CEO of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Ebenezer Onyeagwu, and supported by members of the  bank’s Executive Management, saw thousands of staff and customers joining virtually and through the bank’s social media platforms.

Speaking during the ceremony, Onyeagwu commended Quantum, the company responsible for the annual decorations, for the very outstanding, gorgeous and extremely beautiful work it this year.

In his words, “each year when we come in, and we see the decorations, I keep asking myself what next? Would there be something better than what we have seen and I see that at the end of every season, they come up with innovations and creativity, and they make it even far better and take it to a higher level”.

Onyeagwu expressed his delight that this year’s Light-up Ceremony is able to hold following the cancellation of last year’s edition due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the EndSARS protests. According to him, “last year was a very unusual year. COVID-19 threw a curveball at humanity, and as a result, it changed the way we engaged and the way we live; it transformed so many other things, and as a country, we had some unique challenges.

As a result of those challenges, especially the EndSARS protest, last year we couldn’t light up, not because there was no money. It was because we had to grapple with COVID-19, and again during the EndSARS protest, the fittings that we employ in having this light-up were terribly vandalised, and it required time and resources for us to put it together. We didn’t want to have any undue exposure or create vulnerability…”