Nigeria tourism surviving 8yrs of suspended animation

[By VICTOR NZE]

As Muhammadu Buhari’s 8^th year-tenure as President of the Nigerian state officially ends on May 29, and with it the exit of his minister overseeing the tourism sector, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, most industry operators and stakeholders alike, might be tempted to paint the Nigeria tourism as having survived eight years of a self-imposed suspended animation.

Nigeria’s travel and tourism sector has, tacitly put, endured eight years of grandiose movement without motion under the Lai Mohammed era, who incidentally is the country’s longest serving minister for the industry, where his predecessors have raked in appreciable achievements with a lot less time in office; or at least, held the baton conservatively before passing it on.

However, Mohammed has served as Minister of Information and Culture, supervising the only two agencies of tourism in the ministry, for eight years.

In a sector acknowledged by the United Nations as being a transformative socio-economic one that can contribute substantially to the diversification of national economies and the improvement of livelihoods in the African region, Nigeria has stalled, even before the outset of the pandemic, and worsened by the growing insecurity across the country.

According to UN projections, the number of international arrivals to and receipts earned by destinations in the region has shown a sustained growth in the past decades.

In 2017, international tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) to destinations in the region grew an estimated 8 per cent to 63 million, representing 5 per cent of the world total. This strong momentum is expected to continue at a rate of 5 per cent to 7 per cent in 2018.

According to the UNWTO long-term outlook Tourism, towards 2030 the number of international arrivals is expected to reach 134 million in 2030. This share in worldwide tourism does not fully reflect the huge potential of tourism in our continent.

For Nigeria, the shortcomings may not have been entirely down to Alhaji Mohammed, considering that his principal, the President also failed to recognise the relevance of the sector in growing the wealth of the people and nation, by addressing the problem of insecurity head on, or even moving to address the roots of the matter.

Insecurity and unrest in all parts of the country’s entire six geo-political zones was always going to be a major challenge for travel and tourism development, but while the government turned a blind eye to it, the minister overseeing the sector equally fail to shore up the various departments and agencies (MDAs) under his Ministry of Information and Culture for eight years while in office.

Mohammed cruelly projected the Information and Culture subsectors and used them as smokescreen to fully exploit the tourism industry, which had tremendously placed him on the international limelight by recognising him alone as an icon in the industry, which ironically, no other sector could have rewarded him.

While the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has seen no reason to recognise Mohammed, a sister body, the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), on the other hand reveres the Nigerian minister on account of his level of involvement in the activities of the global body.

However, how that much recognition has rubbed off on the Nigerian tourism industry remains to be seen as eight years of the minister’s presence ends, Monday, May 29, with not a single additional agency, department or parastatal created in the Tourism mini-ministry, despite the loud and unflinching clamour for such among industry operators, who have while demanding more openings, says it would help to drive growth and development in the subsector, as obtains in other climes.

According to the stakeholders, staffing of the new departments in the tourism ministry should not have been a problem considering the huge number of redundant personnel at the culture and information departments in the ministry.

A lack of political will to effect positive policies was lacking in Mohammed’s eight-year tenure, they posit, a claim which is also hard to dispute in the light of much movements and passive motion that clouded his administration.

The minister occupied himself with fighting private sector operators, regardless of the fact that even the UNWTO recognises the essential and importance of that group of players, which it regards as the fulcrum that drives growth and development in the industry, aside the local communities.

For Mohammed, the private sector operators are irrelevant, since government through the public sector is the engine of the industry, a situation which sadly, reduced the umbrella body of private sector operators, the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) seemingly into an opposition political party in the country.

Achievements recorded in the industry were more down to the solo push by the serving Directors-General (DGs) at the only two agencies in the sub-sector, the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Mr. Folorunsho Coker and his Nigerian Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) counterpart, Nura Kangiwa.

Under Coker, the law establishing the illegal NTDC Act in 2004 was repealed and replaced with the Nigerian Tourism Development Authority Act and Related Matters, 2022.

While Coker at the NTDC oversaw the passing into law of the amended NTDC Act which effectively established the agency as a legitimate body, as against previous administrators who simply failed to admit that NTDC was operating or existing illegally in the face of massive exploitation  by state governments at the expense of the Nigerian industry, his counterpart at NIHOTOUIR, Nura Kangiwa, who is barely two years in office, has worked to transform and reposition the agency into an attractive and revenue generating parastatal capable of regulating the industry and also holding its own, by seeing the emergence of a new legislation, known as the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (Establishment) Bill, 2020, that now effectively addresses shortcomings of the previous framework of operations.

The NTDA Act might also be the only achievement recorded by Mr Coker in his near five years in office since his 2017 appointment, it however, counts for much when considered against the backdrop of the fact there was an administrative and legislative vacuum existing before the enactment of the said law, which in itself serves to present his successor a working framework and template with which to grow the tourism sector.

These feats are down to the tenacity of the agency chiefs, and hardly anything to do with the minister, who was arguably comfortable tucking tourism inside a ministry where the subsector, despite being internationally-recognised as a transformative sector, was only good enough to be milked by his office.

Now, Mohammed exits office, not leaving tourism better off, but worse off, needing his replacement to hit the ground running in order to recover lost years of inactivity, confusion and calamitous underperformance.

The minister, through his good rapport with the Secretary General of the UNWTO, Mr Zurab Pololikashvili, whose emergence he facilitated by virtue of Nigeria’s place on the African continent, was repaid with the favour of hosting the 61st UNWTO Regional Commission For Africa (CAF) seminar on ‘Tourism Statistics: A Catalyst For Development’, in Abuja from 4 – 6 June 4 to 6, in 2018.

Ironically, with nearly eight in office and nearly four years after the conference closed, action plans spelt out in the gathering are yet to take root in Nigeria, even as host of the epoch-making event with hundreds of millions of Naira sunk into realizing it.

That novel conference gathered the who-is-who in the industry in Africa, and till date the failure of Alhaji Mohammed to put in place any strategic action plan towards realizing the fallouts of that seminar remains a major dent in the scorecard of the minister.

Till date, no single agency in the ministry or even a department within an existing agency has been created and tasked with data procurement.

It is even more worrying in the face of the fact that sourcing data in the sector is a burden for information seekers, who have to navigate their way through the Ministry of Finance, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), and others, just to gather data on the industry.

To even think that the Nigerian government paid humongous amount of money to host so many African representatives of national tourism administrations and other related sectors, statistical institutes, international and regional organizations, the private sector and the academia who gathered at the seminar in Abuja, all for nothing is more shocking for Nigerian tourism, than the government.

That seminar which held under the theme of; “Tourism Statistics: A Catalyst for Development,” and jointly organized by Nigeria and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on June 5, 2018 recommended that there was a need to better measure tourism with high-quality official statistical information covering all dimensions of sustainable tourism: economic, social, and environmental in order to develop the potential of tourism in Africa, better plan and manage the sector and support effective evidence-based policy decisions in line with the African Union Agenda 2063, which serves as the basis for Africa’s long term socio-economic and integrative transformation.

And also that being a technical exercise, the development and implementation of a sound system of tourism statistics is a political and strategic endeavour, requiring wide and consistent stakeholder engagement, collaboration, inter-institutional coordination and leadership.

In addition to the recognizing that the development of tourism statistics requires the collaboration and coordination amongst all relevant national institutions (such as the National Administration, the National Statistical Office, the Central Bank and the Immigration Authority) and the private sector involved in the compilation and dissemination of tourism statistics due to the cross-cutting nature of tourism.

It, therefore, committed to implement the two official UN statistical frameworks for measuring tourism adopted in 2008, which are; the International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics 2008, and the Tourism Satellite Account:, that was Recommended Methodological Framework 2008. According to the delegates, these statistical frameworks enable countries to produce data that is credible and comparable –across countries, over time and in concert with other standards.

The seminar further reaffirmed the commitment of UNWTO Members States, including Nigeria, to produce appropriate and reliable data that adhere to the 10 Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, notably the use of international concepts, classifications and methods in order to promote the consistency and efficiency of our statistical systems at all official levels.

 Four years after, the Nigerian minister is yet to kick-off any policy framework or action plan towards realizing any of these recommendations and commitments entered into.

There is still no statistics office in the tourism ministry, even as the country has yet to effectively activate its Tourism Satellite Account, as no department or parastatal has been saddled with the task or enabling legislation geared towards achieving those noble goals.

The past eight years has also showed that the previous government of Dr Goodluck Jonathan was right about only opting to merge Culture and Tourism in the same ministry where both existed comfortably, as against squeezing the two subsector into one entity together with a host of Information agencies.

That move also saw an appreciable growth recorded in tourism, as against the static industry endured by operators in eight years.

“I’d say we industry have consistently maintained that tourism needs more than two agencies. In South Africa, they have a special agency saddled with data, just data collection, another with hotel registration, and another saddled with promoting domestic and international tourism destinations, and many others. We don’t have that luxury in the Nigerian industry.

“What we rather see is that while some departments and agencies are over filled with redundant staff who report to work everyday with practically nothing to do, while in some departments and agencies there so much to do with the right personnel absent. So we ask, why not carve out more departments and agencies with these redundant staff at no extra cost to the government?

“Everyday for us the operators, it’s a challenge just to stay in business, and nobody cares, not even the government, where at the state and local levels, they are only interested with revenue collection. There is no central body regulating tourism and hospitality activities and businesses in the country. And this is the loophole the states and local government see and exploit. And this is why I insist Lai Mohammed has failed as a minister.

We have been clamouring for technocrats to be appointed to run tourism and travel in Nigeria, but they keep making it a political decision, and the result is what is happening today, one step forward, three steps backwards and then four years of no movement,” Audu Aule, a tour operator in Abuja, who runs operations in Taraba and Nasarawa states, told Oracle Today.

Commenting on President Buhari’s  eight-year in office, former senator representing Kaduna Central at the National Assembly and chieftain of the opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Shehu Sani lambasted the outgoing president for turning Nigeria into a killing field with 63, 000 people dead from insecurity and another 3 million confined to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps, as well as, a plethora of other negatives he attributed to Buhari.

According to Senator Sani, ‘Buhari has no house in London but made London his home,’ adding further that the outgoing president ‘left behind a nation with 60m people suffering from mental illnesses.’

“He led the country without any economic direction. He presided over a Government that failed to secure the lives of Nigerians; 63k dead, 3m IDPs & 366k refugees in neighbouring countries.

“He failed to restructure as he promised. He granted waivers to the rich & impoverished the poor.

“He closed the borders for those who import bags of rice on motorcycles and permitted those who use the ships. He built magical pyramids that disappeared after three days. He left uncompleted projects with huge debts to service for decades.

“He enabled, enriched & reinforced a cabal for 8 years. He appointed & retained failures and reward them with extensions.

“He was weak in taking decisions & runway when it’s tough. He has no house in London but made London his home. He left behind record inflation, record devaluation, record unemployment, record fall in GDP, record figures of poverty and record plunder of state resources. He left behind a nation with 60m people suffering from mental illnesses.

“He is leaving behind the health workers on strike. He set up traps for the next Government in order to make his own look better,” Senator wrote via his Twitter handle (@ShehuSani), Sunday.

On his part, Also, Mr Daniel Bwala, media adviser to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar asked Nigerians to give themselves a ‘great treat for surviving 8 years of the Buhari administration.

Bwala, in a statement released via his Twitter handle (BwalaDaniel), Sunday, noted also that ‘It can never be this bad no matter who govern Nigeria going forward.’

“If you are a Nigerian citizen or any citizen of the world that reside in Nigeria, make sure to give yourself a great treat today for surviving 8 years of…fill in the blank in your comment below. It can never be this bad no matter who govern Nigeria going forward,” Atiku’s aide wrote.

On another level Mr Effiong Akpan-Udoh, manager of a hotel located along the Old Parliamentary Road in Calabar, Cross Rivers state, thinks Lai Mohammed hates not the tourism sector but the operators and other stakeholders within the industry.

“Do you know that during the COVID lockdown, tourism, aviation and transport sectors were the hardest hit? But do you also know that while the transport and aviation have collected relief and intervention funds for their people, Lai Mohammed has yet to disburse or agree that he collected any money for the people in tourism and hospitality to share as relief? That is the kind of thing a minister will do and you will begin to think they hate their people.

“I’m aware Vice President Yemi Osinbajo gave out money to us but we are yet to see that money or even an explanation, many years after. And the man is leaving office, so I should celebrate?

Akpan-Udoh may have his point, but the tourism was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic and deserved intervention funds for operators to recover their losses, especially as the Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika had secured the first and probably second tranches of intervention for the sector operators. Also, the then Minister of State for Transport, Mrs Gbemisola Saraki had supervised the disbursement of the relief funds to stakeholders in the sector. But till date, despite setting a committee to oversee modalities for disbursement of the funds, the minister has insisted that he is yet to receive any funds to that end. And hospitality operators continued to groan losses incurred during the pandemic.

However, many are wont to advance the minister the benefit of doubt as to why he failed to perform in eight years, in the face of huge challenge posed by insecurity, as they ask, how could tourism have escaped the consequences of a bad government? Then again, the same minister prided himself with defending the same government about insecurity.

During the UNWTO seminar in Abuja, Lai Mohammed while fielding question by the media on achievements recorded by his ministry and by extension, the federal government, replied: “The fact that you are all here in Abuja says a lot about security. I hope you all remember when bombs were flying around in this same Abuja under the past administration?

“So I have to say we have done a lot in solving the insecurity situation in the country,” the minister said in the presence of the UNWTO chief, Zurab Pololikashvili, and his entourage.

Indeed, insecurity may have contributed to Mohammed’s under-performance in office, but arrogance and stubbornly neglect to carry private sector operators along in his policies, or seeming lack of it, has nothing to do with insecurity.

In the same way as allocating funds for global travels on programmes which may not be feasible or ever be realized is also not down to insecurity. Fact remains that our minister only exploited the sad situation of the Nigeria tourism to drive self-seeking agenda.