Idoma International Carnival unveils harrysong, others as headline artistes

Organiser of Idoma International Carnival has unveiled heading artists for the 10th anniversary of the show.
They are Dancehall star, Harrison Tare Okiri, popularly known as Harrysong; Afro-house artiste, Niniola Apata, popularly known as Niniola; Zeh Record label boss, Habeeb Okikiola, popularly known as Portable and the veteran rapper, Gabriel Oche Amanyi (a.k.a Terry G).

The theme for this year’s festival, which will be held at the St. Mary’s Primary School, Otukpo, Benue State, is “Let’s Celebrate”.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), DanHausawa Media Nigeria, Samaila Ogwuche, who spoke on the event on behalf of the President, Idoma International, Edwin Ocha, said: “To hit a decade doing this without sponsorship, apart from Chief Ocha who has invested hundreds of millions of Naira including scholarships to mark the day, is worth celebrating.

“The reason for this carnival is to propel and project the image of Idoma nation in a positive light. We have done so much but not much is heard of us. We want to tell the world who we are and call on the world to invest in Benue State. We will showcase the talents in Idomaland from Innocent Idibia (2Baba) to Dan Amokachi, Terry G and millions of other Idoma people doing great and representing us.”

On the activities, he said: “We will kick off with carnival where we will give palliative to widows and offer scholarships. We will have bikers parade this year, and cultural troupes from Kano, Katsina, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Lagos and others. We are excited and looking forward to the event.

“What is a carnival without concert and entertainment? So, aside from the locals that will be entertaining for four days of the event, we just want to make it more memorable by bringing the A-list artists to be part of the show. We have comedians who will also be entertaining everyone. We will kickoff on December 23 and draw the curtain on December 26, 2022.

“We will begin another decade next year and, of course, bigger and better but the focus now is to have a good time this year and then we can look forward to another 10 years.”
Ogwuche revealed that scholarships have been awarded and helping hands given out to 1000 widows, young children, and orphans.

“The carnival has employed over 100,000 people in the last 10 years in terms of dancers, models. Every year, we have over 2000 participants on the streets hired from different states. This year, we will have beautiful callisthenics. This is actually one of the biggest carnival projects in the Middle Belt Nigeria, what we refer to as North Central Nigeria so, it’s a great event.”

On security during the event, he said: “There’s general security. We have our own internal security measures. We will deploy the military, police and private security and intelligence agencies to guard and protect people on the four days of the event.”