Christmas Carnival Take Over Lagos, C/River & River (PICTURES)

Posted by admin Cross River, Lagos, Rivers, State News, Top Stories Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

IT is Christmas season again and all the cities and neighbourhoods are bubbling with activities. The most common of the activities is carnivals. In Lagos Island, the Offin, Olowogbowo and Fanty carnivals have become the benchmark for other carnivals.

In Ibadan do not be fazed when you learn of Mokland and Falkland carnivals. They are simply carnivals by youths of Mokola and Foko areas of the city. Many other neighbourhood also have their own carnivals making them funky to reflect the hip and vibrance that the youths are bringing into them.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in Lagos Island can be best described as ecstasy and frenzy, as residents awaits the outing of various carnival groups. Aesthetically designed Christmas light decorations are adorning major streets and spots where the carnival parade train is expected to pass through, while ribbons of various colours are tied across major streets in anticipation of the cherished carnival heritage of Lagosians.

The carnival is staged every Christmas Day, New year and Easter Monday. According to Dr Oluyomi Macgregor, the Onipopo of Popo Aguda, Lagos “only Campus, Lafiaji and at times Olowogbowo come out on Christmas day, New Year day and Easter Monday. The Oko-faji carnival parade is on Boxing Day and Epetedo comes out on the last Sunday of the year which is Epetedo day.

Carnival preparations are different but Lafiaji and Campos carnival groups have similar preparations. First there are series of singing practices. Few days before the carnival a motorcade goes to Surulere and other parts of Lagos to inform the indigenes who now live in these places.

Rated as the biggest street jamboree in Africa, the carnival which attracts the crÃ¨me de la crÃ¨me from all spheres of life to Cross River State is no doubt a goldmine. To foreigners, investors, top business executives, ambassadors, researchers, local and international superstars, Cross River is a destination that must not be missed every December.

According to the Special Adviser to the Cross River State governor on Events Management, Mr. Ogbe, “the festival committee is working round the clock to ensure that visitors to the serene city of Calabar during this period go away with a full sense of satisfaction. New initiatives have been introduced, such as the Calabar Water Carnival-a boat regatta that would showcase the state’s rich culture on water, a food fair, which will also bring to the fore the state’s cuisine, the governor’s masked ball, a unique charity event and host of other fascinating programmes.

It is a unique package in which different groups-old or young, single or with family can benefit from. This year’s events kicked off with a dramatic tree lighting ceremony on November 30, where goodwill messages were read before the unveiling of a Christmas tree of about 20 feet tall at the Calabar Millennium Park. Last year, the ceremony witnessed dignitaries such as the chairman of Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, Chief Segun Runsewe and chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Ifueko Omogui, among others.

Apart from the Calabar Carnival which is the most tangible of all the products the state has to offer, the peaceful and neat environment and the attractive terrain provided by nature constitutes a compelling influence that draws fun, leisure, pleasure and business seekers to the state.

In River State, Carniriv is gradually gaining the fame and the level attained by Calabar Carnival. From the first day of the week-long event, the tone was set as the various parading groups, save for the local government camps, were introduced at the carnival village, colourfully geared and manifesting just a bit of what they had rehearsed for the d-day.

That first day, the carnival was declared open by the chairman of this year’s carnival, the first military administrator of the old Rivers State, King Alfred Diette-Spiff, and the state governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who was represented by deputy, Tele Ikuru.

CARNIRIV 2010, in the view of residents of the city, was an improvement on the last two editions. This year’s event provided for the various concerts, publicised enough to have fun seekers around for day-long events.

Besides, the state government took the task of inviting well-known personalities in the carnival world from across the world. Shabaka Thompson, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nottinghill Carnival Village in London, among others, made the event more colourful than the 2009 experience.

“This year’s carnival, even with some observed shortcomings, is about the most colourful ever. Though I did not have the time to see all the days from opening to closing, the ones I saw are enough testimony to the fact that the state government is fighting to restore life back to tourism and culture in this state.

“Do you want to talk about the Boat Regatta or the parades, which can favourably compare to what we see of the Brazilian carnivals? Believe me I have had fun and next year’s event will be more colourful because once we are able to get this culture and tourism thing fixed, the work of rebuilding this state from the wrecks of cultism and ethnic rivalry will be simpler,” observed Akonte Promise, a resident of Port Harcourt.

The last two days of the event were the icing on the cake because they were the days on the roads, they were the days when the carnival spirit was taken to the doorsteps of residents of Port Harcourt.

The long, exhaustive local governments’ parade on Friday took over Aba Road, from Rumuola to Old Town, displaying floats and the various cultural and natural endowments of each of the 23 local government areas of the state. Saturday was the day for the free-style bands’ street parade and this took Ikwerre Road. The state governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, took part in this one from start. During these two days and on these two major roads of the Garden City, the ordinary residents, who naturally would not have imagined going to the carnival village or might have considered it stressful to follow others out for the sake of the carnival, stood on the balcony of their buildings to watch the colourful trains drag along.

Perhaps the most significant value of the CARNIRIV 2010, besides the fact that it set the stage and tone for the various street parties, as it had done in the last two years, was noted by Kingsley Wobo, a resident of Port Harcourt.

According to him: “the long and peaceful week of the carnival attested to the fact that the state has finally found its footings as far as peace, security and order are concerned.

“If you recall, events of three, four years back did not have this sort of atmosphere and then no one was imagining street parties, not to talk of a state’s carnival. We have now found our peace and security and we can take on the world now,” he stated.

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