CALABAR CARNIVAL

Some models who participated in the Cross River Governor’s Carnival Band have threatened to stage a protest over non-payment of their allowances.

The protest which was supposed to take place on Thursday was postponed when the Commissioner for Tourism, Eric Anderson intervened with a promise of ‘settling’ them tomorrow.

A source who revealed this said that some of the girls who came from Abuja, Lagos, and Port Harcourt have been ‘squatting’ with friends in town while some are still hanging in hotel bars where they lodged during the event.

The source, who preferred not to be named, said three of the girls are sharing his hotel room with him because, ”they have nowhere to go.”

“The very day they came into town was when they started having accommodation problems. According to them, no accommodation was reserved for them so I asked them to keep their things in my room”, he said.

When contacted, Mr. Anderson confirmed the incident. He said only ten models wanted to protest. He also gave the governor’s defence.

“For the models that came in for the Governor’s band, all have vendors so it is a situation of ‘misinformation’ between them and their vendors. We had over 150 models that came and about ten wanted to go for a protest this morning. So I even wondered why ten out of 150 would want to protest, what happened to the others? So I think vendors for these ten are not giving them direct information.

“The leadership of the Governor’s band did not interface with the models directly, we only interfaced with them through their vendors.

“It is not in our character. When money that is to be paid to vendors is delayed, it does not mean that the money will not be paid. Lots of bills are being sorted out and there are some that are yet to be sorted out which we are working on tirelessly to clear.”

Each model according to findings was to be paid N50,000 as their allowance.