A Christian youth group in Cross River State, has
protested at the Government House in Calabar, over
the conduct of carnival activities on Sundays.
The group also alleged that the state government
was apparently planning to suppress Christianity in
the state and relegate the religion to the
background.
One of the leaders of the protesters, Rev. Theodore
Effiong, who is also the National Adviser and Patron
of the group, expressed regrets that the Calabar
Carnival has caused the state social and moral
setback.
He stressed that there was alarming increase in
teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and child
abandonment.
Nigerian Eye reports :
Expressing their concerns, they lamented that the
last carnival to Christmas which took place on
Sunday, allegedly hindered many Christians from
attending Sunday worship as most of the major
roads were closed to traffic.
The protests which took place for two consecutive
days, started with the Cross River State Christian
Women who appeared in sack cloths at the
Government House gate, urging the state Governor,
Senator Liyel Imoke not to allow the Carnival or
Carnival Dry Runs to hold on Sundays again.
They lamented that the last Carnival dry run
hindered scores of worshipers, and prevented them
from going to church due to the blocking of roads
by the Carnival train.
The placard carrying women who went through
Calabar main market, Watt and the Millennium Park
and finally barricaded the Governor’s Office gate,
said “no dry run or Carnival on Sunday, it is the
Lord’s day”.
The youth wing known as Christian Youths in Cross
River, protested the second day and filed out to the
Governor’s office in black attire, chanting songs as
they appealed to the governor to stop promoting
carnival, sexual immorality, ungodly activities and
the street dance with its associated ills.
In a letter which was delivered to the governor
through his Security Adviser, Mr. Rekpene Bassey,
the aggrieved youths recalled that Christianity
started in Calabar, as the two Efik Kings, King Eyo
Honesty 11 and King Eyamba V were the first
monarch in Africa in 1841 to write Queen Victoria of
England, requesting for Missionaries to fill the gap
created with the abolition of slave trade.
Besides, they stated, that the Holy Bible was first
translated in Efik language in the entire Africa,
before any other native language in the continent.
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