Carnival Calabar, celebrated as Africa’s biggest street party, has thrived for two decades, outlasting other festivals across West Africa, according to prominent tourism expert and Organiser of Akwaaba African Travel Market, Ambassador Ikechi Uko.
He attributes this remarkable endurance to the festival’s strong institutional memory and its inclusive, non-religious nature.
Speaking a at press conference in Lagos organized by the Carnival Commission to intimate the media on developments of the 2024 Carnival Calabar, Uko noted that while other states launched similar initiatives around the same time, Carnival Calabar’s ability to retain and leverage its executive team’s collective knowledge, along with its broad appeal, has been crucial to its sustained success through four different administrations.
He said: “There is something I have said about the Cross River Carnival, which I will repeat today. Twenty years ago, many states started their tourism products about the same time Cross River started the Carnival. We have all heard about Lagos Carnival, River State Carnival, Abuja Carnival. Almost every state had something like that. But as of today, none is existing,” said Uko.
“There is a reason why Cross River Carnival is still standing 20 years after through four governors. And I will give you the reason from my own study. First is something that is missing in Nigeria; it is called institutional memory. The executives of the carnival have been in the carnival one way or another in the last 20 years. There is no skeleton, no bone buried that you don’t know where it’s buried. And in Nigeria, no state has that capacity to retain knowledge over time. So, every project that has started in Nigeria has died at the end of that particular regime.”
“The next crucial factor is the community’s buy-in. When the carnival organizers announce a dry run, the entire town prepares enthusiastically. This was evident when the carnival was paused for two or three years, and yet, upon its return, the first dry run felt like a full-scale carnival. The people of Cross River have a deep-seated hunger for the carnival, and their active participation has been vital. These two elements—institutional memory and community buy-in—have kept the carnival thriving. Today, Carnival Calabar is the only tourism product that Nigeria can proudly present to the world.
“If you do not separate spirituality or religion from your tourism product, you will kill it. I’ll give three examples. The Roots Festival in Gambia was once the biggest tourism event in West Africa. It was a major diaspora festival until former President Yahya Jammeh mystified it with rituals and spiritual connotations. The churches in America stopped attending, and now the Roots Festival is defunct. Ghana has since adopted the concept with its ‘Year of Return.’
“Similarly, Lagos’ Heritage Festival faltered when they incorporated midnight initiation rituals in Badagry.
“I advise keeping the spiritual elements separate from the entertainment, much like the Durbar Festival, where religious activities are concluded before the public celebration begins. This approach has made Carnival Calabar exceptional. It remains independent of religious affiliations and beliefs, keeping it pure and universally appealing. As a result, it stands out as Nigeria’s most significant tourism product, admired globally.”
