- Hit hard on Minister Hannatu Musawa
- Want govt., private sector collaboration to drive growth
Hannatu Musa Musawa, minister of art, culture and the creative economy
On the occasion of the midterm of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, tourism sector stakeholders have weighed in on its performance in the industry while also mapping out a blueprint for its administrators following a verdict of poor showing over the last two years.
According to the stakeholders, after two years of this administration, “there is nothing to be cheerful about in tourism and the creative economy.”
Many of the speakers decried the mismatch in government appointments and sometimes, the deliberate move by the government to distort sustainability of the sector through policy summersault.
According to them, each time a new government comes into power there seems to be a set-back as it reverses the policies of the previous government, especially if they are not from the same political groups.
The experts, who spoke on a programme, Creative Naija on Mainland Radio, anchored by Frank Meke and Bunmi Bade-Adeniji and monitored by by Business a.m. condemned the approach by Hannatu Musa Musawa, the minister of culture and tourism, to administer affairs of the sector without involving the private sector that is meant to drive its growth.
Susan Akporiaye, former president, National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) described the sector as a unique one that needs the participation and contributions of industry players to thrive.
According to her, successive ministers keep repeating the same blunders while those who should give directions for growth and development of the sector are ignored.
“Tourism is a unique sector, the players need to be involved for the government to understand that you can’t do tourism without the involvement of the people. Forget about the Nigerian tourism show all these years, I know people that have been doing it decades upon decades even before I was born and people are still doing it. The minister needs to do more private sector engagement, she needs to know that tourism is practical, I really don’t know who they are listening to but it’s always the problem of who they are listening to. They need to start listening to the right people, people that are selfless.”
According to her, there is room for the country to retrace its steps, if the minister can just admit that she has been going in the wrong direction and consult industry players.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with her as a person, people should go beyond seeing it as an individual but the office, she should be able to admit that she has consulted the wrong people. I believe there’s still hope,” she said.
Nike Art Gallery, Lagos
Okorie Uguru of the Association of Tourism Journalists and Travel Writers insisted that until the government, even though with lofty ideas and promises, engages with the private sector, the sector may continue to crawl.
“What has changed? We have had a lot of promises, if we remove all these promises like destination 2030, what have we achieved in the last two years? If there’s nothing to show, all these grammar and promises are nothing because tourism is s practical thing, it is when there’s an engagement with the private sector that the minister knows the problem of the industry, you can now chart a new course on how to collaborate and then approach government for funding; but when she is doing things in silos, the private sector doesn’t know where you are heading to, that will not work.”
For his part, Prince Femi Fadina, president, Association of Tourism Practitioners of Nigeria, wants government to channel the same energy it is devoting to harness opportunities in the oil section to the tourism sector, lamenting the unprofessionalism that fits the helms of affairs at the ministry.
“It is sad that we have people who have all it takes to run the sector effectively but we keep picking the wrong people; this is painful. This administration hasn’t delivered anything in tourism,” he lamented.
Also speaking, Otunba Michael Balogun, national secretary, Nigeria Association of Tour Operators, expressed skepticism about the sustainability of the sector saying government attitude on policy making is the bane of tourism.
According to him, “I don’t think we’ve done enough to engage the private sector. Tourism does not exist in isolation and this is the part this administration has gotten wrong from the get-go. I am the president of tour operators and for a whole two years, we’ve not had a round table with the minister. And when you see the minister having events that we are not even invited for, you begin to wonder who are the people pushing these narratives of destination Nigeria, Detty December, it’s the tour operators.
“The Nigerian government doesn’t even have a destination management company to sell all these narratives. It makes some of us look unpatriotic to say we have been pushing and promoting Nigeria all these years, yet we have never met my minister. They have to get this holistic picture that we have to sit down with players. There is also the issue of continuity, there can never be sustainability, when a policy is put in place and a few months after, the minister is removed; continuity is very key,” he said.
Andrew Okungbowa, a seasoned tourism journalist and another panelist on the programme, expressed worry over insecurity, especially in the northern part of the country, calling for deliberate effort to address the situation.
Okungbowa noted that if Nigeria’s tourism must thrive, the ministry must rise to the occasion and and take security matters up with necessary quarters.
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“We are handling tourism in isolation, it’s an encompassing thing. If the government had understood the soft power of tourism, this war wouldn’t have lasted. The minister should sit down and ask herself what she has achieved in the last two years. At the last ministerial briefing she was talking about programmes outlined, no single reference to what she has done. One other problem is sustainability, we don’t sustain, we use and dump, so when Hannatu [Musawa] leaves today, all those programmes she has outlined would be forgotten.”
Frank Meke, co-anchor of the programme, also harped on insecurity, sustainability and lackadaisical attitude of the government towards visa regimes.
He also condemned the mismatch in government appointments in most administrations.
According to him, “you can’t have sustainability when you don’t have a policy. And when you have sustainability you must have responsibilities. So when those things are missing, it’s like we are just playing games. Look at the president’s speech, we just want to invite people to come and do festivals; that is the only achievement, that’s terrible! There are wrong people in the wrong place. The president needs to be courageous to change the ministers like Orji Kalu said. The truth of the matter is that Nigeria is just wasting her time and resources and it is painful because our children are looking for jobs that should have been provided,” he said.
Meke also condemned a situation whereby the minister seemed to be uninterested or not in tune with what is happening in the sector as visa issuance remains a thorny problem for tourists.
