Last week, the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) sent a petition to the government and people of Nigeria on the parlous state of tourism in Nigeria. The association, representing sub-sector tourism bodies such as National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies, Nigeria Hotel and Catering Institute, Association of Tourist Boat Operators and Water Transporters, Association of Tourism Practitioners of Nigeria, Nigeria Youths Tourism Association of Nigeria, Institute of Tourism Professionals of Nigeria. Hotel Owners and Managers of Lagos, Tour Operators of Nigeria and many others my space could not accommodate, simply told us that Nigerian tourism cannot thrive under the circumstances it has found itself under watch of Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information.
Many people certainly wondered why FTAN took time until these last “ten minutes” of this administration to call out Lai Mohammed to account for his supervision of the tourism sector. To allow a game to go on for 86 minutes, with fouls, shoving and outright neglect of the rules of the game, and, suddenly, FTAN has found its voice in protest, this demands our interrogation.
Howbeit, FTAN’s “red card” for Lai Mohammed is timely and deserves the President’s attention, even though the industry acted with caution, albeit wisely, to avoid being seen as hasty in asking for accountability for seven years of tourism under this administration.
So, the grounds of contention being carefully laid out and articulated by president of FTAN, Mr. Nkereweum Onung, speak volumes of Lai Mohammed’s neglect of the industry and for which FTAN rightly called for a change. For seven years, there was truly no bankable or appreciable road map for the industry, not because we are not endowed but because the government drivers of our tourism future were in sleep mode.
And at each bend, just as the proposed UNWTO visit to Nigeria, we are made to dance to the drumbeats of confusion, the ministry’s usual recourse to enthrone comedy and diaspora content above cultural tourism promotion, which smacks of poor understanding of Nigeria’s tourism sector.
It is untenable that a ministry in charge of tourism had no response to the pains of the COVID-19 lockdown, which devastated the industry, and yet finds it expressly easy to junket to global tourism confabs, partake and listen to how other countries responded to the crises, and yet deem it only fit to look out only for opportunities to host a troubled tourism world.
As FTAN leadership rightly observed, to invite UNWTO and inaugurate a committee out of the critical purview of the sector certainly projects an insidious agenda against national tourism aspirations.
Indeed, for seven years, the minister, and his political trajectory in the ministry, has failed to appraise and interpret our collective tourism dream and, most painfully, protecting pomposity and pharaohmatic pretence that FTAN and industry players do not count.
How he got away with it remains a mystery, until the FTAN’s open call last week to account for not being able to get to grips with solutions for our tourism dilemma. To count, issues of visa regime to Nigeria, pains of service protocol hurting visitors into Nigeria, no bailout funds for the sector, and compared to Aviation and Trade and Investment ministries’ support to operators under their watch, Lai Mohammed and his team do not factor a pass to speak and hold forth for Nigerian tourism.
Those who see rebellion in FTAN’s call and boast that government will go ahead and host UNWTO are just out to feather the nest of unprofiled future setback for tourism. Take it or leave it, Lai Mohammed is on his way out and having set his mind possibly to ignore the call to engage the tourism private sector as represented by FTAN, that leaves him on the blacklist of our tourism history.
Again, I believe the truth about the National Theatre and its many controversies will soon expose the rot in our national tourism ecology, a situation and process begging for due diligence and commitment as against robotic and endemic systemic corruption in the corridors of transfer of public infrastructure to private hands.
No doubt, this same National Theatre (Entertainment City, as renamed) has suffered from transparency transition from time immemorial and gained traction under the ministry, which has never bothered to let Nigerians know those who now own the land.
Two gentlemen in this sector had earned my respect over tourism matters over the years and for reasons I will explain when their views run on this podium, Victor Kayode, of the Nigerian Hotel and Catering Institute, unputdownable Andrew Ehanire, a board member of Association of Tourism Practitioners of Nigeria and facilitator, Ogba Zoo, Benin City, both tourism intelligence power houses and who have taken to backing the FTAN call for boycott of the UNWTO jamboree event in Nigeria, are warriors waiting in the wings to sustain the advocacy of a stand-alone Ministry of Tourism and ready in weeks to come to also articulate the many sins of Lai Mohammed against Nigerian tourism.
Some people possibly are yet to understand why and how we got here and being hasty to see FTAN’s bold attempt to expose industry rot as a response “to being left out of the UNWTO planning committee.” One thing they possibly again fail to understand is that FTAN has since over a year ago notified the minister and ministry of the desired intent to rub minds in order to reverse the poor returns of tourism to national economic database.
Anyway, in every community, divergent views must be expressed and so, too, Judas must find expression among a few. However, for us to take back our tourism tomorrow and get any incoming administration to evaluate their economic recovery plan through engagement of tourism business, we must stand up and support FTAN to articulate and reposition the sector for our nation and people. No one individual, no matter his or her political clout and propaganda maneuvering, is bigger than Nigeria.
Time for tourism truth to be told has come and we must support the truth to set us free. We join FTAN to say boycott UNWTO meeting in Nigeria. It will steal from us, nothing less. We have nothing to gain from the jamboree.