Calabar Standstill as First 2022 Carnival Dry Run flags-off

Activities within the city of Calabar, the capital of Cross River State in south-south Nigeria came to a halt with the flagging off of the first of three 2022 Carnival Calabar dry runs.

 

 

The governor, Professor Ben Ayade performed the ceremony amid pomp and pageantry at the Millennium Park, the usual take-off point of the annual 12 kilometre long street party.

 

 

Governor Ayade, who had earlier unveiled the 2022 Carnival Calabar theme “Agro-Industrialization”, promised to make the event, which is the last for his administration, truly ‘the largest street party Africa has ever witnessed’.

 

 

He said, “today marks the beginning of my concluding carnival. So, as we set forth to start the first dry run, I commit today to the almighty God. Today we have great reasons to celebrate because Cross River is gathered yet again to bring the kaleidoscope, the verve, the panache that characterizes creativity on the 12 kilometre route”.

 

Self-sustenance 

According to Ayade, the 2022 edition of the carnival, which was holding again after the COVID-19 pandemic halted the state’s premium tourism event for 2 years, would send a message to the world that Nigeria and Africans in general have the capacity to be self-sustaining amid global food scarcity.

 

He decried the dependence of many African countries on the west for food despite the available and vast arable land God has given the continent, saying “agro-industrialization is indeed the way to go. For any nation that is committed and serious, that is the way to go. The greatest insecurity is hunger. There is no insecurity more threatening to man than the insecurity of hunger.

 

“With the bloody inhumanity characterized by the war between Ukraine and Russia, leading to scarcity of grains, it means that by the onset of 2023, the nations will be in big trouble. This is even exacerbated by the massive floods that we have witnessed in recent times even in Nigeria.”

 

“Therefore I see a harbinger of scarcity, hunger and pain grinding people to their zenith in terms of criminality and animalism. In order to reverse that and set us forth on the path of the prosperity agenda, I have therefore decided to Christine this theme to fit into the philosophy of humanity and justify the full efforts of our government,” he stated.

 

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of the Cross River State Carnival Commission, Mr. Austin Cobham congratulated the governor for his decision to continue the carnival in spite of the two years break occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Cobham, who described the first 2022 dry run as the mother of previous rehearsals, said, “this year’s theme could not have come at any other time than now when the world is going through a period of war and growing insecurities after being ravaged by COVID-19.The only way that the world would survive has actually proven to be agro-industrialization.”

 

Background

Carnival Calabar was started in 2004 by the former governor, Mr. Donald Duke with five bands differentiated by distinct primary colours and names such as Bayside identified by blue, Seagull wears red, Freedom was allocated yellow, Masta Blasta uses Orange, while Passion 4 is separated by green.

 

Governor Liyel Imoke expanded the carnival by introducing children’s Carnival, Cultural Parade and the beauty pageant for eligible Nigerian girls and continued with the street party until 2015 when the incumbent governor, Professor Ayade came on board.

 

Governor Ayade introduced the Miss African pageant, International Carnival and introduced a non-competitive governor’s band, which has now metamorphosed to one of the two new bands namely CalasVegas led by former Minister of Culture and Tourism, Edem Duke and Diamond with the Commissioner for Tourism and Culture, Eric Anderson as leader.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

O.O