Mudslide cant stop Obudu Mountain Race- Commissioner

Cross River State State Commissioner for Youth and Sports, Mr. Patrick Ugbe, has debunked rumours making the rounds that the annual Obudu Mountain race scheduled to take place on Nov. 23 this year may not take place again due to last week’s landslide at the ranch.In a telephone discussion, Mr. Ugbe said rubbles of the landslide would be dealt with and the track rehabilitated as soon as possible to give confidence to international marathoners who have indicated interest to vie for honours during the two-day event.

Although he said the incident was unfortunate, he insisted that the race would go on as planned and that his office was doing everything to assure foreign athletes of their safety and comfort. Meanwhile, motor-cyclists have made brisk businesses out of the situation since the management of the resort engaged youths in the area to ferry people to safety through pathways.

This has made those with motor-cycles take advantage of this to double fares as about 27 guests were at the ranch as at the time of the incident. Our correspondent who visited the sites said motorcyclists were making brisk business by transporting passengers to and from the foot of the mountain with stops at the various landslide sites for them to cross over the debris on foot.

Commenting on the incident, the General Manager of the Obudu Mountain Resort, Mr. Trynos Makiwa said that once the two major slide points at the foot of the hill were cleared, vehicles could get to the bottom of the hill where the resort could be accessed by the use of the cable cars which he said were in perfect conditions. Mr. Makiwa who described the cable car in Obudu as the first and only one in Africa, said it was formidable, reliable and the only existing means of transportation for visitors to the resort at the cost of N1, 600.00 only. 

He said that his worries were the difficulties of transporting materials to the resort especially fuel for power plants as well as the villages with a population of over 10,000 who are already finding it difficult to access the towns and villages for their daily economic activities.

In a comment, the youth leader of Ikwete community a.k.a Bottom Hill, Mr. Charles Iguaga lament that the slide affected several farms – cassava, plantain and banana plantations and other economic tress in the community and appealed for government to intervene urgently.