The popular Calabar Calabar Roundabout located at MMHW
Simon Utsu|15 October 2016
Calabar Road is one of the busiest and most popular roads in Calabar city. It falls behind Muritala Mohammed, Marian, MCC, IBB, Mary Slessor roads in the pecking order of popularity.
I develop fond memories of Calabar Road whenever I remember my primary school which was situated on #100 Calabar road. Calabar road starts where the Muritala Mohammed Highway ends; at the very strategic 11-11 Roundabout. At the beginning of Calabar Road you have the CBN to your right and Calabar Lodge to your left. I learnt the Calabar Lodge is the first lodge the Freemason opened in Nigeria.
Moving a further 70 meters up front takes you to Total filling station, this is where the Calabar Municipality length of Calabar Road ends. The remaining, longer portion of the road falls under Calabar South Local Government. Moving further takes you to Watt Market. Watt Market or "Urua-watt" as the Efiks call it, is the biggest market in Calabar. From my opinion, it is also the cleanest and most organised market in Nigeria and possibly West Africa – the attributes of the market I've mentioned above are a couple of the numerous legacies of former Governor Donald Duke.
Immediately after the Watt Market section of Calabar Road, the next big stop is the Calabar Anglican Cathedral. It's around that spot a smartly dressed volunteer used to control traffic in the 1990's. Further down to your right there's the mosque which belongs to the Ahmadiyya Islamic sect. Adjacent that mosque if my memory serves me right, there used to be a supermarket, Rasco? Few meters to your front on the side of the supermarket, is where we have the Federal Psychiatric Hospital, – a very old hospital I must say located on #123 Calabar Road. Because even in the 1990's, it looked archaic and old to me.
Walk/drive 100 meters from there and you get to #100 Calabar road which is where my primary school; Madonna Montessori was/is located. It was one of the best nursery/primary schools back in the day. It was a catholic school and shared fences with Charles Walker memorial school, which was also a(albeit smaller) catholic Nursery and primary school.
I can't remember going beyond that point(#100) as a kid or even an adult. Because after #100, you start heading towards the Idang axis- one of the most dangerous parts of Calabar. I don't really know it's level of ghetto but what I know is, Idang for years has been notorious for breeding miscreants and all sort of negative characters. Much like Mushin in Lagos, Molete in Ibadan and Diobu in Port-Harcourt.
Maybe that's the reason why I can't recollect ever going past that part of Calabar road- that's on the lighter note though.
Simon Utsu
Is a Social Commentator writing from Lagos
