Calabar carnival: In 14 Years Cross River State Has Become A Centre Of Cultural Diplomacy-Gabe Onah
-Oru Leonard
The chairman of Cross River State Carnival Commission, Gabe Onah, has said that the Carnival which happens every year in Calabar, Cross River State, is a platform for cultural diplomacy.
Mr Onah made the statement in chat with some journalists during the ongoing International Arts and Crafts Exhibition (INAC), media briefing organised by the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC).
He said, that the carnival product itself is marking its 14th year, while the Christmas festival which is now called Calabar festival is marking its 18th year, as it was birthed in the millennium year.
The Chairman noted that the Calabar Carnival is a vision that has been given to the commercial success of the State, adding that they have made huge benefits out of this, as the youths have been engaged meaningfully.
“A lot of our neighbours across the world don’t ever believe that Africans numbering more than 10,000 can be in one place at the same time celebrating their culture, celebrating their own; but here we are 14 years down the line.
“So for us, it is humbling that we are celebrating this cultural renaissance, bringing people together and sharing that which God has given to us which is our smiles, our warmth, dance, drama, colour and above all a platform that can change lives”.
He said that the Cross River Government has provided the enabling environment for the private sector to thrive and advised that the private sector should protect the various programmes introduced by government for them to be sustainable and outlive any government in power.
He further disclosed that a Public Private Partnership framework is on progress. “We believe that by 2020, we should have nearly 100% private sector funding. So far so good it is also a platform for the private sector to market their goods and services with a million live operators, with 50 million television viewers with DSTV beaming us to 54 countries of the world.” he stated.
“We are saying that you can make a living from this sector, this is our oil and gas. We lost our oil well to our neighbors not too long ago but we said, ain’t no stopping us” he remarked
He highlighted Job opportunities have grown from 2,000 to 22,000, direct employment in the subsector.
“The carnival is a theatre on the move but these stories are told through all the elements of theatre, plot, dance, drama itself, costumes, makeup and of course the final of them there have to be a synopsis, it guides the story.
Every year there is a theme that goes with the Carnival. This year’s theme is titled “Africanism’” Mr Onah explained that by choosing the title Africanism, we are telling ourselves that we as Africans must begin to take our rightful place in the scheme of things, enough of having us as a dumping ground, enough of having us as that continent that is dark, everything that is negative is black, enough for us to only know diamonds when they get to Europe, they took them here like muds it gets to Europe it becomes diamonds.
“If we don’t drive domestic tourism as the first point of view to bringing our locals in modern destination, South Africa, Jamaica, the first people who tell these stories are the locals themselves, Nigerians have been good to us because we are moving to commercialisation we’ve been testing commercialisation in the last 12 years” the Chairman concluded.
The Calabar Carnival 2018, titled Africanism will hold from December 26 – 29, 2018.
