It was pump and pageantry at the unveiling ceremony of the Calas Vegas Carnival Band, last Wednesday in Calabar.
The official unveiling and presentation of certificate to the band, which took place at the Ashbury Hall of the Mirage, had top government functionaries, stakeholders in the hospitality industry, cultural enthusiasts as well as youths in attendance.
The Calas Vegas Carnival Band comes with a variety of of innovative, unique features and paraphernalia that are designed to bring life and spice to the festival.
The leader of the Calas Vegas Carnival band, High Chief Edem Duke said the creation of the band “is an opportunity for us to find social opportunities for interaction for our young people who are already making great contributions, especially in the creative sector.”
He noted that the Calas Vegas Carnival Band “is a platform for economic development, talent discovery, and expression of creativity by our youths and it is an economy of its own.”
READ: New COVID-19 variant: Ayade suspends 2021 Carnival Calabar
Duke, a former Minister of Culture and Tourism said the need to grow young people and redefine culture, creativity, and entertainment was among other things which led to the creation of the Calas Vegas band.
He added: “That is the soft power of the creative sector and entertainment, and we need to point the youths in that direction that out of the intangible things around them include their abilities, they can grow themselves, a career and be able to fend for themselves and their future families.”
According to him, the band will not only complement the Calabar Carnival but will market Cross River’s tourism potentials to the whole world through creativity.
“We want to make the Calas Vegas band the model band, we want to make it not only creatively strong but to use it as a tool to aggressively market the destination Cross River. We also would like to open our doors to people from different parts of the world who would want to come to Calabar and participate in the carnival; not necessarily in a competitive way but also to explore all of the other offerings within the culture and tourism landscape of Cross River State,” he said.
Presenting the certificate of registration and unveiling, the Commissioner for Culture and Tourism in the State, Mr. Eric Anderson said when the idea of expansion dropped and who to head them, Chief Edem Duke came top owing to his decades of experience in the culture and tourism sector.
“Two years of us not having the Carnival festival, we all thought as Cross River, we should look inward what has been our challenges in the past years and we realized that we have more none competing bands than competing bands and the only way forward was to create two more bands. Today of all the things to appreciate High Chief Edem Duke for is to ask him to head one of the bands.
“I want to encourage the members of various bands to follow their leaders,” assuring the carnival will hold this year having failed to hold two conservative years.
Pouring encomiums to the Calas Vegas band whose slogan is “Happiness is free”, the Executive Secretary of Cross River State Carnival Commission, Evangelist Austin Cobham lauded the band for taking bold steps even without clinging to the government for funds.
“I want to commend the Calas Vegas band for these bold steps. This is the first time in 7-8 years of being Executive Secretary I have seen a carnival band push up even without funds from the government; it’s quite commendable and I’m impressed with what I’m seeing now. In Africa, there has not been any public gathering yet after the COVID-19 lockdown and Carnival Calabar is offering its first opportunity in Africa.
“I want to congratulate Calas Vegas band and I want to assure you we will extend the same cooperation we have to the five bands to the additional two bands and everything will work out.”
Other high profile personalities present at the ceremony include the President of African Club 1903 Calabar, Barrister Ededet Eyoma, members of the African Club and Harcourt Club of Calabar, amongst others.
The event featured musical performances, comedy, dance, band displays, and among others.
By Patrick Obia and Obeten Godfrey
