Poor lighting mars Calabar Carnival

Funseekers, who tropped out in their thousands to witness this year’s Calabar carnival, have bemoaned the inability of the government to light up the city, especially the procession routes of the carnival.

Some of the funseekers spoke in a seperate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar on Wednesday at the day six of the annual carnival.

The respondents noted that the non-functional street lights on the routes robbed the carnival, which started on a high note during the day, of the shine it deserved.

NAN reported that the 12km routes started from Eleven Eleven Roundabout on the highway to Effio-Ette junction at Marian Road and down to the end point at the stadium.

They said the government should have done better by ensuring the functionality of the street lights before the carnival period.

A respondent, Mr Pascal Bajie, an entrepreneur based in Calabar regretted that the 2022 edition of the carnival, which last took placed in 2019 lacked the usual glamour.

He pointed out that before now, the street lights that had only functioned occasionally for years, should have been fixed for the purpose of the carnival.

According to him, I am actually disappointed in the government who are the organisers of the carnival. This amounts to waste of time.

“There is no fun because we can’t even record the procession this night because of non-functional street lights.”

Similarly, Theresa Ogwu, who resides in Calabar said many of the funseekers who came from outside the state would be greatly disappointed with this outcome.

“The night activity was expected to be highly entertaining and fun to watch should there have been functional street lights.

“You can see how poor the illumination is on the carnival routes. It wasn’t like this in previous editions and the government ought to know better.”

“In previous editions, the streets lights were usually turned on even before 6pm but its 7:30pm now and the lights are not on,” she stated.

On his part, Mr Andy Akin, a visitor to the town, who also bemoaned the absence of Street light, said an international event like this that saw participants from no fewer than 14 countries should have better be organised.

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