I guess it is not by accident that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, is constructing a highway between Calabar and Lagos The construction is political, historical and economical. I will dwell on the historical aspect. It is an acknowledgement of the peaceful Calabar city and what that ancient city still means to the rest of us. There is an old adage that says, “GOD LOVES CALABAR, A LAND OF BEAUTY”. Truly, the serenity of Calabar will impress anyone. The soul of a city is in its people. The people of Calabar are not lacking at all. Valued historic buildings scatter Calabar. A drive around Calabar city is a wonderful experience. Maybe the construction of the highway is compensation for Calabar for not having a rail system that was first constructed in 1891 between Lagos and Ibadan under British rule. Even when the eastern line was constructed between Port Harcourt and Maiduguri by the British later, Calabar was left out. During that colonial era, Minna, Zaria, Kaura Namoda, Jos, Kuru, Kano and many cities enjoyed rail facilities but not Calabar.
It was not until the Lagos/Calabar railway line project was conceived by the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014 with approval from the Federal Executive Council However, the project has not seen the light of day. The British colonial administration moved the country’s administrative headquarters from Calabar after the Chiefs of Old Calabar signed the 1884 Treaty of Protection. The territory of Old Calabar served as the first colonial government centre for the Southern Protectorate and the Oil Rivers Protectorate. However, this changed in the fourteenth year of the 20th century when the administrative centre was changed to Lagos. Lagos was the first capital of Nigeria and became the country’s first administrative centre in 1914.
Calabar is a living museum of Nigerian history Lagos is the first national administrative centre for the West African nation. It was declared as such during the Amalgamation Proclamation of 1914 by Sir Lord Frederick Lugard, the Governor-General, after the unification of the Northern and the Southern Protectorates. The nation has had two official capitals since 1914.
On 1 January 1914, the newly appointed Governor-General of Nigeria, Sir Lord Frederick Lugard, announced Lagos as the first capital city In his speech during the Amalgamation Proclamation of 1914, Lugard declared that: “For the present, the Central Headquarters will remain at Lagos, and the Governor-General will divide his time between the Headquarters Stations of the Northern and Southern Provinces”. The evolution of the nation’s capital cities began with Nigeria’s colonisation by the British Empire. This journey started with the unification of the Southern and Northern Protectorates in 1914 under Governor-General Sir Frederick Lugard. Prior to the unification of the British Protectorate, Calabar, now Cross River State capital, served as the central administrative centre for the Southern Protectorate. Before 1914, Kaduna City in Kaduna was the political capital of the Northern Protectorate. After coming under English rule on 10 September 1884, Old Calabar was designated as the first principal city for the Southern Protectorate, the Oil River Protectorate, and the Niger Coast Protectorate.
Calabar, known initially as Akwa Akpa in the Efik language, is located in the southeastern region of the country It served as a significant pre-colonial trading port for the West African region. In 1900, Sir Lord Frederick Lugard settled in Lokoja, making it the regional seat of government before moving the administration centre further up the Niger River to Jebba in 1902. In the same year, he moved the regional capital to Zungeru in Niger. In 1912, Lord Lugard’s quest for a more accessible and centrally located administrative centre led him to Kaduna. Although he declared Lagos as the seat of the government in 1914, he did not hide his preference for Kaduna. When Portuguese explorers in the 15th century reached this part of the Guinea coast, they called the tribes of the area “Calabar”. These historic inhabitants were Quas, Efuts, and Efiks. Efik people migrated from the area of the Niger River to the shores of Calabar. They were fleeing civil war with their kindred and the Ibibio people.
Since the 16th century, Calabar has served as an international seaport, exporting such goods as palm oil During the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade, it became a major port for shipment of African slaves to the Americas. The Spanish maintain the Calabar designation. Tribes around that region were taken in as slaves for the slave trade. Those minority tribes were subject to slave raids by more powerful tribes or ethnic groups in the region. From 1725 until 1750, roughly 17,000 enslaved Africans were sold from Calabar to European slave traders; from 1772 to 1775, the number soared to more than 62,000. Old Calabar (Duke Town) and Creek Town, 16 kilometres (10 mi) northeast, were crucial towns in the trade of slaves in that era.
The first Army Barracks in Nigeria was built in Calabar in 1903 The first national newspaper in English published in Eastern Nigeria was called THE NIGERIA EASTERN MAIL, and it was first published in Calabar. On security, the first maximum-security prison was built in Calabar in 1890.
Calabar holds a foundational place in Nigerian football history as the location of the country’s first recorded organised football match on June 15, 1904, at the Hope Waddell Training Institution in Calabar Students from the Hope Waddell Training Institution played against sailors from a visiting British naval ship (frequently cited as the HMS Thistle or HMS Dwarf). Mary Mitchell Slessor arrived in Nigeria in 1878 under the auspices of the United Free Church of Scotland, now the Presbyterian Church Mission.