Our Correspondent|4 January 2019
The Cross River State Governorship Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Eyo Ekpo has described the 2018 Calabar Carnival as a failure, saying that Governor Ben Ayade doesn’t have the required knowledge to grow the state and it has shown in his handling of the state's tourism.
Ekpo held that if Ayade could put up such a mess of a Carnival in an election year, one can only shudder at the thought of what will become of the Carnival if he is reelected, claiming that the Governor wants to kill the Carnival but that the only thing standing on his path is the wrath of the people.
Ekpo wondered why the Carnival, which had the highest allocation in the state budget and a year for preparations was still plagued with obvious lack of preparation, culminating in problems with crowd control, street brawls and reported incidents of theft and rape.
The founding Chairman of the Cross River State Carnival Commission explained that Tourism all over the world exists on the four pillars of infrastructure, healthcare, security and education.
His words, “There are beautiful places to visit all over the world but certain locations stand out because of their accessibility; Governments of the said area deliberately invest in infrastructures like roads, rails and other infrastructures for easy access to these destinations.
“Secondly, visitors want to be sure that if they fall ill the destination has a capable health care system to take care of them so that government invests in health. The third one is security; Visitors want to be able to move freely without the fear of being robbed of their hard earned cash and valuables, so the government puts in place a security apparatus that works”.
He stated that all tourist destination have an army of educated young people available to the industry, so the government will always focus on providing quality education to its citizens, saying the Governor has no understanding of governance.
Ekpo expressed sadness over what the Carnival has become saying, “It is sad to see that the Calabar Carnival has become a festival of waiting during a 16/17-hour period for 7-8 hours of marching and adjudication. For the rest of the time, both citizens and band members are waiting listlessly.
Ekpo held that the “Carnival is about family, entertainment and movement, as synchronized as possible, which means doing Carnival in broad daylight. Waiting kills all three and that happened when Carnival became a thing of the night. Poor execution capacity has only made the problem even more glaring.
Ekpo promised that his administration “will once again focus Carnival planning on the 3 key elements above and comprehensively/effectively execute whatever plan is developed. When that happens, we will bring about a reborn Calabar Carnival showing of its beautiful and rich sights and sounds.” He concluded.
