CHRISTMAS UNPLUGGED 2.0: Umo Eno’s Special Way of Adding Value (4)
By Hilary Owowo
After many months of planning, coordinating, galvanizing, and strategizing in sleepless nights, Akwa Ibom people can now shout hurray! and thank God that the second edition of #ChristmasUnplugged is here – and with such a bang.
Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Sir Charles Udoh in a conversation with SSG Prince Enobong Uwah
When I visited the popular Christmas Village yesterday, what I saw did not surprise me. That is because I know what our amiable people-friendly and good culture-loving Governor, HIs Excellency, Pastor Umo Eno can do whenever he finds reason to endorse an idea he considers altruistic, beneficial to all, especially as Christmas has to do with the birth of mankind’s saviour.
Scene at Akwa Ibom Christmas Village Uyo
Perhaps the sweet offense I committed yesterday was that, in the overwhelming excitement of the slights and sounds, I hurriedly posted the pictures and videos on my timeline. I didn’t know I was putting myself into trouble in global eyes. I wished I knew! Immediately, friends in places outside Akwa Ibom started calling and blaming me for having left for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, without a notice. To convince them and be free, I had to post more pictures, including permanent landmark structures around the improvised Christmas Village and Udo-Udoma Avenue, for them to finally believe this is happening in Uyo, the Capital City of Akwa Ibom State. The inexhaustively rich bouquets of entertainments and marginal attractions of Christmas Unplugged certainly will leave nobody struggling over choices and options. They are superfluous in their alluring varieties. Whereas last year was fine in its own right, this year’s is finer with incomparable grandeur.
A Governor’s Passion for Good Things:
This year’s edition was kick-started by His Excellency, Pastor Umo Eno on December 1st. He didn’t allow the dark clouds of his wife’s burial two nights earlier deprive him of the sunshine of the life that lies ahead. Represented by the Secretary to State Government, Prince Enobong Uwah, His Excellency said the fiesta was to add colour to Xmas and create extra avenues for people to express love to friends, the poor and indigent, while the therapeutic atmosphere deliberately created to add value to life and prepares the mind for the season and the New Year.
In anticipation of this moment a week ago, the governor had cautioned against wild and diabolic displays that obscure the essence and objectives of Christmas Unplugged. It was therefore pertinent that Mr. Uwah reminded fun seekers and participants from different local government areas to be wary of the standing directive by His Excellency.
“It is therefore my pleasure to use this moment to invite all Akwa Ibom people at home and in the Diaspora, friends to the Christmas Carol Night scheduled for 13th December, 2024”, His Excellency stated. He assured all that appropriate government agencies and consultants were at their top gears to ensure cleanliness, security and general safety of the Christmas Village throughout the 32-day duration. Indeed, our governor is a lover of positive ideas. A champion of hospitality and tourism in his private life. On the same day he presented the 2025 budget to the State House of Assembly, he carved out time for a stopover at the Village, last Tuesday, to see how ready things were. Because Christmas Unplugged is a melting pot for socioeconomic undertakings, the governor also had called for downward review of cost for kiosks at the Village from the N150k of last year to N100k, warning racketeers and profiteers against all manners of exploitation. That way, there is a sense of belonging, inclusion and integration reminiscent of the season.
Thank you, your Excellency! Your devotion, humility and ready disposition to sustain and support beautiful ideas continue to distinguish you in the comity of Governors and contemporary leadership discourse. It makes more sense on remembering workers in the State shall be blessed with “Enomber”as icing on the cake.
Sir Charles Udoh and His Creative Mind:
I never court any doubts about the inherent ability of the Hon. Commissioner for Culture & tourism, Sir Charles Udoh, to pleasantly surprise and leave mouths agape with his enviable talents, professional brand and public service signature. I’ve always known him to be a connoisseur with infectious cosmopolitan flair, a celebrated content creator of the highest taste, and a capable and dependable steward in whom every boss is pleased to have. Give him a task in his domain of expertise, then go and sleep and then wake up to behold wonder! With him in this business, all we have had are testimonies and longing for more. Sir, you have delivered with a master class distinction that shall stick on memories for years to come. In this connection, Charles is the interpreter-in-chief of the governor’s vision for this spectacle and a pencil in His Excellency’s hand for the tourism aspects of the Arise Agenda.
The Schedule:
Official schedule of Christmas Unplugged 2.0 indicates that it was billed to run from 1st December, 2024 to 1st January, 2025. On 13th December, 2024, Christmas Carols Season 17 shall be held. It would be recalled that the maiden edition of the carol on 13th December, 2014 had launched Akwa Ibom on the global map, winning her the Guineas World Record of the largest choir ever assembled on earth, with 25, 272 on one choir.
Christmas Unplugged 2.0- A total package:
Amongst other things, Christmas Unplugged 2.0 clearly proves the power of creativity, innovation and commitment to give life and flesh to abstraction, making ordinary things extraordinary to promote culture, add quality to recreation, elevate this special season, and give finesse to life in such a way that stress and boredom instantly takes flight from the human soul.
According to Sir Charles Udoh, this year’s event has been meticulously designed to be a centrepiece for jamborees, including music and gyration, glamour, cuisines, folklore, comedy, drama, composite games, talent hunts, etc, all essentially targeted at killing stress and reviving and preserving extant facets of the peoples sociology. All this takes place at the Xmas Villa, otherwise known as Unity Park, beyond the ceremonies. To this end, the 31 local government areas are to take turns on different and designated days to entertain with all they could boost. Needless to say that the atmosphere is already electrifying. It is likely that the display of Akwa Ibom’s culinary endowments will remind visitors and tourists why Hilda Bassey won the GWR for cooking.
Split details also indicated that there will be non-stop concerts with the number “32” as a common symbolism: 32 days; 32 DJs, 32 singing groups, 32 dancing troups, 32 comedians, 32 artists, etc
Expected outside the State’s are Timaya, Bongos Ikwue, Fiokee, Homeboy, etc. And from the Akwa Ibom miliue are state-born artistes, like old brom.
The Amazing Aesthetics:
The eye-catching make-shift stage at Christmas Villa is deservedly a cynosure that safety can contest for Guinea Book Record. I refuse to think Sir Udoh was exaggerating when he supplied some schematic details of the dome in his updates. He said it is perhaps Africa’s biggest round-domed stage with 120 feet diameter, covering a circumference of 200 feet. The whole provides comfort, therapy and elixir to the soul.
We can only whet our appetite as Christmas Unplugged 2.0 unfolds like the folded petals of a beautiful flower in gentle sunrise!
Hilary Owowo writes from Uboro-Isong-Inyang in Udunguko Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
