22/09/2026
*Hundreds Join Healthy Billionaires Fitness Club at 7th Calabar Walkathon*
The streets of Calabar came alive on Saturday as fitness enthusiasts, corporate partners and residents trooped out for the 7th edition of the Calabar Walkathon, organized by the Healthy Billionaires Fitness Club, with the theme “A Walk for Unity and Sustainable Development.”
Declaring the event open, Cross River State Governor, Senator Bassey Otu, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Anthony Owan Enoh, said the theme was timely as the nation heads into an election year.
“In our seventh edition, and of course this seventh edition is for unity and sustainable development. We need to sustain the dividends of what this administration is doing, and we can all do this together,” the SSG said.
He commended the organizers for sustaining the initiative since 2020 and thanked partners including Zenith Bank, NUGi Technologies, Keith FF and other fitness clubs who have supported the Walkathon from inception.
This activity is growing bigger and bigger. I want to thank all our partners, all fitness clubs who join us to do this activity,” he added.
Chairman of the Planning Committee for this year’s edition, Mr. Samuel Usoro, said the annual walkathon is designed as a platform for public enlightenment and civic advocacy. This year’s focus centers on promoting local unity, driving discussions around sustainable development, and fostering collective social responsibility across Cross River State.
He said the club deliberately chose unity as its advocacy cause because of the divisive tendencies that often characterize election seasons.
The Assistant Secretary of the Healthy Billionaires Fitness Club, Hope Obeten said the club, founded in 2020 during COVID-19, has grown beyond fitness to social impact.
“Over the years as a club we walk on different causes. We started during the COVID year as a way of bringing the whole Calabar community together for a cause. We are health-focused. We focus on healthy living,” he said.
He listed the club’s interventions to include payment of medical bills for indigent patients, visits to motherless homes and medical outreaches in communities beyond Calabar.
He added that the choice of the carnival route for the 7th edition was strategic: “This is almost like the first unofficial dry run because we open the route before the carnival.”
