Memo to Buhari on Tourism 1:
By Wale Ojo Lanre
Nigerian Tribune , Wednesday 22 April , 2015
By Wale Ojo Lanre
Nigerian Tribune , Wednesday 22 April , 2015
I congratulate you for your victory at the poll, which you must not see as just a mere victory over an opponent but one which has placed on you the enormous responsibility of effecting fundamental and surgical changes in the entire sphere of this nation called Nigeria.
General Sir, apart from tackling the cancer of corruption, which is eating up the fabric of the nation, there is the urgent need to shore up the energy production for the country to be in motion.
One other fundamental issue, which you must address in earnest, is finding alternative source of revenue to oil, if this nation must grow, develop fast and be able to raise its head in the comity of nations.
Every successive government in Nigeria, in the past few years, have mouthed these issues, but none has been able to effectively and earnestly make spirited efforts at searching for another source of revenue, just because of our overdependence on oil.
A mono product revenue-generating nation is always at the mercy of international market indices and global events, which gives no room for stability in planning and execution of projects and thus, truncates or strangulates development.
This is the situation which Nigeria has found itself today; at the mercy of global oil prices on which we as a nation predicated our budget and development plan.
Sir, it will interest you to know that Nigeria is economically sick and developmentally ill because no serious developmental projects are being embarked upon because the oil revenue dropped drastically, which reduced the allocation alarmingly, forcing all development projects all over the country to be on hold.
The fault is not in those who derive joy in manipulating the international oil prices to suit their whims and caprices, but in us as a nation, which has refused to do the needful by nurturing alternative sources of revenue.
Sir, it is a known fact that Nigeria is solidly an agrarian country. The present government of President Goodluck Jonathan did honestly laid down and embarked on rigorous re-engineering of the sector, to the benefit of the country, and I have no doubt that you will not only build on his achievements, but add more value.
However, one of the sectors which have helped many countries out of their mono economy syndrome and, which also served and serving as awesome revenue generation resources is tourism.
God Almighty, apart from blessing Nigeria with crude oil, also, in his infinite abundance, pampers us with multifarious natural tourism assets which are crying for development
This sector has helped to bail many countries out of economic doldrums, salvaged them from unemployment crises, mobilised wealth, empowered the citizens and made the countries glow and financially healthy. Such countries include Malaysia, Indonesia, France, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Zimbabwe, India, Britain, Seychelles, Brazil, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Dear General, it will surprise you that Ghana, which has not up to 10 notable tourism sites, reaped a whopping sum of one billion dollars only in 2013 in International tourism receipts and investiments.
This is money spent by international inbound visitors, including payments to national carriers for international transport. These receipts include any other prepayment made for goods or services received in the destination country.
They also may include receipts from same-day visitors, except when these are important enough to justify separate classification. For some countries, they do not include receipts for passenger transport items. Data are in current U.S. dollars.
Malaysia, which has a population of 25 million people, received 26.5 million visitors in 2013 with $21 .05 billion.
I am using these two countries, which have identifiable similarities with Nigeria to drive home my point.
Malaysia, like Nigeria, is an oil-producing country, which in the pre 80s, relied so much on oil as the main source of revenue.
However, the oil glut of the 80s dealt a deadly blow on Malaysia and Nigeria, which almost collapsed their economies.
Realising the urgent need for alternate revenue generation sources as the oil glut receded, paving way for oil boom again, Malaysia, scared of being beaten twice, diverted heavy fund from oil to develop two other alternate revenue sources-manufacturing and tourism.
The country looked inward and developed most of its tourism sites to international standard. Malaysia, for instance, turned all the environmentally polluted and desecrated mine spots into unimaginable tourism sites, embarked on massive marketing, branding and publicity.
Today, the fluctuating global prices of oil have no impact on Malaysia’s budget; the country’s budget was not predicated on oil prices.
However, the reverse is the case in Nigeria. Instead of copying Malaysia’s module and following suit, our nation quickly forgot the trauma of the oil glut as soon as oil boom reared its head again.
Sir, there is no tourism ingredient, elements, items, objects and values, which does not abound in Nigeria.
Malaysia, which 55 years ago came to Nigeria and acquired palm seedlings, established palm tree plantation and today is one of the countries, that exports palm oil to the world, including Nigeria.
General Sir , the Ghana situation is compelling and interesting , Ghana has only 10 prominent tourism sites and because of the seriousness its government accorded the sector, it has become its major revenue source, attracting a sum of $1 billion to its economy in 2013.
Mr President-in-waiting, Jordan is another country of the Middle East, which has no oil as others, but blessed with just six major tourism sites, which are Petra, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, Amman, Jerash and Aqab.
The government never mourned that the country was without oil, but went-ahead to set up the legal necessities and created a conducive atmosphere, making tourists to rush to Jordan.
Sir in 2013, Jordan reaped only $5.7 million from tourism!
Mr President-in-waiting, the main purpose of making these few examples is to show that countries which do not have, one percent of our tourism potentialities are making money and lubricating their economy through it while Nigeria, the giant of tourism, is not trying to crawling at all.
And the problem is not in our ability to recognise the potentialities of tourism, but largely because of the lucre of the cheap money from crude sales, successive governments have always been reluctant and complacent when it comes to execution of tourism plans and policy.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo connection!
To be continued next week
General Sir, apart from tackling the cancer of corruption, which is eating up the fabric of the nation, there is the urgent need to shore up the energy production for the country to be in motion.
One other fundamental issue, which you must address in earnest, is finding alternative source of revenue to oil, if this nation must grow, develop fast and be able to raise its head in the comity of nations.
Every successive government in Nigeria, in the past few years, have mouthed these issues, but none has been able to effectively and earnestly make spirited efforts at searching for another source of revenue, just because of our overdependence on oil.
A mono product revenue-generating nation is always at the mercy of international market indices and global events, which gives no room for stability in planning and execution of projects and thus, truncates or strangulates development.
This is the situation which Nigeria has found itself today; at the mercy of global oil prices on which we as a nation predicated our budget and development plan.
Sir, it will interest you to know that Nigeria is economically sick and developmentally ill because no serious developmental projects are being embarked upon because the oil revenue dropped drastically, which reduced the allocation alarmingly, forcing all development projects all over the country to be on hold.
The fault is not in those who derive joy in manipulating the international oil prices to suit their whims and caprices, but in us as a nation, which has refused to do the needful by nurturing alternative sources of revenue.
Sir, it is a known fact that Nigeria is solidly an agrarian country. The present government of President Goodluck Jonathan did honestly laid down and embarked on rigorous re-engineering of the sector, to the benefit of the country, and I have no doubt that you will not only build on his achievements, but add more value.
However, one of the sectors which have helped many countries out of their mono economy syndrome and, which also served and serving as awesome revenue generation resources is tourism.
God Almighty, apart from blessing Nigeria with crude oil, also, in his infinite abundance, pampers us with multifarious natural tourism assets which are crying for development
This sector has helped to bail many countries out of economic doldrums, salvaged them from unemployment crises, mobilised wealth, empowered the citizens and made the countries glow and financially healthy. Such countries include Malaysia, Indonesia, France, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Zimbabwe, India, Britain, Seychelles, Brazil, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Dear General, it will surprise you that Ghana, which has not up to 10 notable tourism sites, reaped a whopping sum of one billion dollars only in 2013 in International tourism receipts and investiments.
This is money spent by international inbound visitors, including payments to national carriers for international transport. These receipts include any other prepayment made for goods or services received in the destination country.
They also may include receipts from same-day visitors, except when these are important enough to justify separate classification. For some countries, they do not include receipts for passenger transport items. Data are in current U.S. dollars.
Malaysia, which has a population of 25 million people, received 26.5 million visitors in 2013 with $21 .05 billion.
I am using these two countries, which have identifiable similarities with Nigeria to drive home my point.
Malaysia, like Nigeria, is an oil-producing country, which in the pre 80s, relied so much on oil as the main source of revenue.
However, the oil glut of the 80s dealt a deadly blow on Malaysia and Nigeria, which almost collapsed their economies.
Realising the urgent need for alternate revenue generation sources as the oil glut receded, paving way for oil boom again, Malaysia, scared of being beaten twice, diverted heavy fund from oil to develop two other alternate revenue sources-manufacturing and tourism.
The country looked inward and developed most of its tourism sites to international standard. Malaysia, for instance, turned all the environmentally polluted and desecrated mine spots into unimaginable tourism sites, embarked on massive marketing, branding and publicity.
Today, the fluctuating global prices of oil have no impact on Malaysia’s budget; the country’s budget was not predicated on oil prices.
However, the reverse is the case in Nigeria. Instead of copying Malaysia’s module and following suit, our nation quickly forgot the trauma of the oil glut as soon as oil boom reared its head again.
Sir, there is no tourism ingredient, elements, items, objects and values, which does not abound in Nigeria.
Malaysia, which 55 years ago came to Nigeria and acquired palm seedlings, established palm tree plantation and today is one of the countries, that exports palm oil to the world, including Nigeria.
General Sir , the Ghana situation is compelling and interesting , Ghana has only 10 prominent tourism sites and because of the seriousness its government accorded the sector, it has become its major revenue source, attracting a sum of $1 billion to its economy in 2013.
Mr President-in-waiting, Jordan is another country of the Middle East, which has no oil as others, but blessed with just six major tourism sites, which are Petra, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, Amman, Jerash and Aqab.
The government never mourned that the country was without oil, but went-ahead to set up the legal necessities and created a conducive atmosphere, making tourists to rush to Jordan.
Sir in 2013, Jordan reaped only $5.7 million from tourism!
Mr President-in-waiting, the main purpose of making these few examples is to show that countries which do not have, one percent of our tourism potentialities are making money and lubricating their economy through it while Nigeria, the giant of tourism, is not trying to crawling at all.
And the problem is not in our ability to recognise the potentialities of tourism, but largely because of the lucre of the cheap money from crude sales, successive governments have always been reluctant and complacent when it comes to execution of tourism plans and policy.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo connection!
To be continued next week
