About two months ago, I wrote about my suspicion that the trending issue of male genital organ disappearance in Calabar, the capital city of Cross River State was a hoax as well as a demarketing strategy targeted at Carnival Calabar and indeed, Cross River State tourism at large.
That no allegation was ever proven scientifically or after police investigations, coupled with the fact that the noise about the issue reduced and gradually faded away after a few of us came out to question the authenticity of the issue, has somewhat given credence to the suspicion that there was more to the issue than meet the eye.
Away from the genital organ disappearance, in what looks like another strategy to fight the resurgence of Carnival Calabar and tourism under Gov. Bassey Otu’s administration, the Akwa Ibom State owned airline, Ibom Air, has shockingly suspended flight operations into the Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar, indefinitely for “operational reasons”.
Whatever the “operational reasons” may be, that the airline considered this period, barely nine days to the commencement of the Carnival Calabar, a 31-day non-stop international festival to shutdown flight operations to Calabar, can not be a mere coincidence. This is the period that Cross River expects and, indeed, receives the highest number of visitors and tourists.
Recall that Akwa Ibom State had copied Cross River and introduced her own one month long festival too, in December.
Possibly, the Akwa Ibom State government was unimpressed with the decision of Governor Otu’s government to reintroduce the one month long festival. Under the immediate past administration, it was reduced to just a few days, and this allowed the Akwa Ibom version to thrive.
In what appears as an economic battle against its sister state, Ibom Air may have suspended its operations to discourage tourists from visiting Cross River for the events. It is an open secret that the major roads to Cross River are in terrible condition, and to use the waterways, you must pass through Akwa Ibom. The only competitor the airline has, Airpeace is as unreliable as anything.
Since the launch of Ibom Air, Calabar has been one of the biggest markets for the airline. Because of the unreliability of Airpeace, Ibom Air management, from the beginning decided to extort passengers coming to and fro Cross River by hiking the fare by almost 40% even when the distances between Uyo and Calabar from all its routes in the country are the same. Until the suspension, Ibom Air fare to Calabar was the most expensive across all its routes in Nigeria.
Not satisfied with the extortion, they have now done the worst by suspending operation to Calabar possibly to push traffic to Akwa Ibom in this festive period.
The truth is that, no matter what anyone would say or how much the Carnival Calabar had rettogressed in the past few years, the brand is still the biggest in Nigeria. With the vigour and commitment the current administration has shown towards reviving and making it better, Akwa Ibom State is obviously not happy because it sees the established brand as the biggest competitor to its upcoming brand.
The Cross River State government must rise to this challenge by quickly negotiating with any reliable airline to start flying the Calabar route immediately, even if it means that in the next one month, the government will pay for the differentials for empty seats, if there would be any.
Also, the managers of the state owned aircraft should be mandated to commence flying the Calabar route even if it means that they would suspend any agreement regarding what they’re to remit to the state within this period.
Finally, after this period, the state should ensure its airline and others are flying the Calabar route consistently to break Ibom Air’s semi-monopoly.
Akwa Ibom State and its institutions have not been fair to Cross River State. The state generally has not acted like a good neighbour and child. Even during the #EndSARS protest, it was alleged that the destruction of key infrastructure in Calabar was carried out by arsonists from our “neighbouring state”.
While I encourage Cross River and its indigenes to continue to practice what the scripture says in Mathew 5:43-44 and Leviticus 18-19, the state must also be wary of the dangerous envy by its neighbours as captured in 1Peter 5:8.
Inyali Peter, Ph.D, wrote in from Abuja.
* The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent the views of www.calitown.com
