New Year’s Eve at Osu

By Stephen Kwabena Effah

Saturday, December 29,2007

OSU R.E., popularly known as ‘Oxford Street’ will on New Year’s Eve host one of the biggest outdoor entertainment events in Accra, a street carnival, to draw the curtain on the Golden Jubilee year and usher in 2008 in style.

It will be all music, fun and merry-making when hundreds of people dressed in fancy and colourful costumes pour onto the streets of Ghana’s ‘small London’ to celebrate peace and West African culture in vibrancy and colour. For, it will have a good representation from other West African countries, as well.

This year’s event has been put together by an Accra-based radio station, Vibe F.M, in collaboration with Ghana @50 Secretariat and MTN.

The carnival was established as a major street party to enhance cultural bonds between different regions and countries.

At exactly 8 p.m. on Monday, all shops along the street, from the Danquah Circle to the Castle traffic lights will close and the crowd will take over with a procession of masqueraders.

The event, which will run until the following day, will have four different stages: the ECOWAS Village, Children’s Village, Live Stage and the DJ Power Play stage.

An official of Vibe FM told Times Weekend that the ECOWAS Village will feature francophone, Liberian and Nigerian artistes and disc jockeys with their indigenous foods and drinks on sale.

What the Children’s Village will offer includes kids castles, face painting, lots of ice cream and soft drinks, while the live stage will offer live performances by Samini,Tic Tac, Reggie Rockstone, Kweku T and Wutah among other shows.

The DJ Power Play stage will present a rotation of disk jockeys from the various radio stations and night clubs in the country dishing out mixes of good tunes.

The official urged all to attend the carnival as it will be filled with lots of fun suitable for the whole family.