Ayade urges FG to boost Carnival Calabar with budgetary provision

The Governor of Cross River State, Professor Ben Ayade has called on the Federal Government to fully invest in the Carnival Calabar which is at its 13th edition to make it a truly strong African brand.

Ayade who described the hosting of the Abuja Carnival as a competition to the state’ carnival, made the call, when he received the Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Alhaji Lai Muhammad, represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs Grace Gekpe during a courtesy visit to the governor’s office in Calabar, recently.

“The only way Carnival Calabar can become a strong African event is when the Federal Government begins to show interest by making budgetary provisions for the festival yearly.

“We are a subnational, and running parallel carnivals such as is currently being seen everywhere across the country, does not add value, but the value will come only when the Federal Government starts supporting us with a vote.”

Continuing, Ayade suggested, “I want the Federal Government to sponsor each state to participate in Carnival Calabar.

This was the same suggestion I made to the Imo State Governor when I assured him that Cross River State will participate fully in Imo Carnival 2017 as one of the bands.”

According to Ayade, “You can imagine if each state were coming as a band and then we have 36 states competing against one another, could you imagine where Africa would have been? The whole world will start seeing our greatness.”

“This carnival that we took over two years ago is now ranked among the best carnival events in the world.”

“We have made a lot of progress but this has also put the extra burden and a challenge to us. To sustain the current status is not good enough, and to sit back is an absolute disaster. So, we are aiming to become number one by creating more exciting programmes because carnival cannot be static.”

“They could not believe that we could have over two million black people on the street without any form of crisis or incidents. It was a well organized, packaged event from start to finish.”

In her remarks, Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, Mrs Grace Gekpe who was in the state to flag off the first in a three-part carnival dry runs, promised to take up the responsibility of marketing the state to the international community.

Gekpe lauded the state for growing the carnival so fast in such a short period to an extent of establishing mass camps for each of the five competing bands.

According to her, the event has created a platform for the teeming population to get themselves gainfully engaged and grow the economy.

Also speaking, Director-General, National Council of Art and Culture, Otunba Segun Runsewe described Carnival Calabar as Cross River State’s own oil well, stating that “If Nigeria must get it right in Nigeria, it must start in Calabar because the city is the neatest in Nigeria and still remains the most peaceful in the country.

“The tourism offerings we have in Calabar is original, not artificial. There is no need we spend huge forex outside the shores for vacation. Calabar carnival needs to be aggressively promoted and celebrated because it is the most organised and well-packaged event in Africa today,” he added.

Runsewe also announced that with the state’s support, he is going to invite the heads of the tourism sectors in the 36 states and Abuja to Calabar to understudy event management and brainstorm on the country’s tourism sector.