Nigeria tourism’s squandered opportunities

Poor vis­ion, a lack of polit­ic­al will, infra­struc­tur­al decay among oth­er short­com­ings are respons­ible for Niger­ia not being the num­ber one coun­try when it comes to tour­ism in Africa. All the ingredi­ents were there at inde­pend­ence, and for those who were around then, the future of tour­ism in Niger­ia must have seemed so bright. But just like in many oth­er facets of nation­al life, it has been a story of unful­filled poten­tial, of squandered opportunities.

Nigeria’s cent­ral geo­graph­ic­al loc­a­tion in Africa means it is eas­ily access­ible from all parts of the con­tin­ent; north, south, east and west. Com­bined with the fact that the coun­try is one of the top busi­ness des­tin­a­tions in Africa as a res­ult of being the lead­ing oil pro­du­cer on the con­tin­ent, it only seemed nat­ur­al that it would be its lead­ing avi­ation hub, not only for intra-Afric­an travel but also to link Far East coun­tries like China and Japan to the West – the USA, Lat­in Amer­ica, the Caribbean.

A few coun­tries have built their tour­ism by first pos­i­tion­ing them­selves as avi­ation hubs and also estab­lish­ing nation­al car­ri­ers as tools for both dip­lomacy and tour­ism. The Middle-East­ern Emir­ates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as Qatar are recent examples. Closer to home, Ethiopi­an Air­lines toes the same line.

At inde­pend­ence, Niger­ia already had a two year old air­line, the West Afric­an Air­ways Cor­por­a­tion (WAAC) Niger­ia which was later rebranded Niger­ia Air­ways. In its hey­day, Niger­ia Air­ways flew to over 40 des­tin­a­tions both loc­al and inter­na­tion­al. Apart from major Nigeri­an cit­ies, its route included major Afric­an cap­it­als start­ing from the West Afric­an sub region, a few cit­ies in the Middle-East, mul­tiple European cit­ies and New York. Unfor­tu­nately, the air­line was run into the ground due to mis­man­age­ment and cor­rup­tion and ceased oper­a­tions in 2003. From its ashes rose Vir­gin Niger­ia, which later became Air Niger­ia. Both suffered a sim­il­ar fate.

In com­par­is­on, Ethiopi­an Air­lines, which was foun­ded a few years before Niger­ia Air­ways, now serves 19 domest­ic and 94 inter­na­tion­al des­tin­a­tions (includ­ing 5 Nigeri­an cit­ies), rak­ing in profits in the process.

Unlike some coun­tries that have based their tour­ism inflow solely on loc­a­tion and man-made attrac­tions, Niger­ia is blessed with jaw-drop­ping nat­ur­al won­ders and diverse wildlife.

A trop­ic­al coun­try with clem­ent weath­er all year round, Nigeria’s geo­graphy means it has a vari­ety of veget­a­tion broadly divided into forests (man­grove swamps, fresh water swamps and rain forest) and savan­nahs. These trans­late into diverse wild­life com­pris­ing thou­sands of bird and anim­al spe­cies. The Cross River rain­forest alone is touted as one of the most bio-diverse eco­sys­tems in the world.

A few coun­tries in East and South­ern Africa have built an industry around their wild­life, boost­ing their eco­nom­ies in the pro­cess. Many of the anim­als that attract tour­ists to those coun­tries are present in Niger­ia. From the lions and leo­pards found at the Kainji Lake and Yank­ari Nation­al Parks, to the ele­phants and gor­il­las at the Cross Nation­al Park and many more. Fur­ther­more, the white-throated mon­key (also known as the red-bel­lied mon­key), one of the rarest anim­als in the world, can only be found at the Okomu Nation­al Park in Niger­ia. While rel­at­ively boun­ti­ful at inde­pend­ence, all the above-named anim­als (apart from the leo­pard) are crit­ic­ally endangered and on the verge of extinction.

Unlike the anim­als that are now rarely seen, the numer­ous rock form­a­tions and water­falls that dot the Nigeri­an land­scape – from the hills in the south to the plat­eaus in the north – stare us in the face, cry­ing for atten­tion and devel­op­ment into world stand­ard tour­ist sites.

Too numer­ous to men­tion, they include Idanre Hills, Olumo Rock, Wikki Warm Springs, Agbokim Water­falls, Erin-Ije­sha Water­falls, Zuma Rock, Iko­gosi Warm Springs, Farin Ruwa Water­falls, Gur­ara Water­falls, Owu Water­falls, Mat­sirga Water­falls … and many more. They were all there 57 years ago. They are in no bet­ter state now than they were then.

The Idanre hills are a group of dome-shaped por­phyrit­ic gran­ite insel­bergs loc­ated in Akure, Ondo state, Niger­ia. By Dotun55 (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wiki­me­dia.

Anoth­er advant­age Niger­ia has nat­ur­ally, is an extens­ive Atlantic Ocean coast­line meas­ur­ing 853km, run­ning through sev­en States; Lagos, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River. To put it in per­spect­ive, this is almost twice the length of Kenya’s coast­line and more than 10 times that of Gam­bia (80km). This is in addi­tion to numer­ous inland water­ways – rivers, creeks and lagoons.

Coupled with great weath­er all year round, it is amaz­ing that water­front infra­struc­ture and the beach cul­ture are prac­tic­ally non-exist­ent in Niger­ia. The glar­ing example is Lagos, Africa’s most pop­u­lous city and Nigeria’s com­mer­cial and enter­tain­ment cap­it­al. You would expect that five-star hotels, res­taur­ants, casi­nos, and oth­er hos­pit­al­ity out­lets would line the long stretch of beaches, help­ing to cre­ate a water-centred life­style cap­able of attract­ing tour­ists from around the world.

On the con­trary though, many of the beaches have lost their allure. Rather, the present gen­er­a­tion is regaled with stor­ies of pristine beaches and clear blue water at loc­a­tions like Tark­wa Bay and Bar Beach, with com­par­is­ons to places like Miami. The stor­ies are that of ret­ro­gres­sion, not development.

Niger­ia is the most pop­u­lous Afric­an coun­try and the most pop­u­lous Black nation in the world. More impress­ive than the num­ber of its inhab­it­ants is the diversity of its people. The coun­try is a mul­tina­tion­al state with 500 eth­nic nation­al­it­ies and a com­men­sur­ate num­ber of languages.

This vari­ety has thrown up cul­tures over the years, some still influ­en­cing present day life across the Atlantic – in the Amer­icas and the Carib­bean. The country’s rich his­tory includes ancient civil­isa­tions dat­ing back hun­dreds of years (Nok, Ife, Ben­in to name a few), and the attend­ant stor­ies and artefacts.

You would expect a mul­ti­tude of func­tion­al, up-to-date museums to help pre­serve the past and guide the future. Of course, this also gen­er­ates tour­ism rev­en­ue, with Afric­ans in the Dia­spora troop­ing in to learn more about their roots and a great past. But alas! Most of the museums are dying, worse off than they were in 1960.

Thank­fully, the fest­ivals cel­eb­rat­ing the indi­gen­ous peoples’ cul­ture still remain. It is doubt­ful how­ever, if any of the fest­ivals are self-sus­tain­able, talk­less of adding rev­en­ue to the nation­al coffers.

The Dur­bars in Kano and oth­er parts of the North, the Eyo Fest­iv­al, the Osun Oso­gbo Fest­iv­al, the Ojude Oba Fest­iv­al, the Calab­ar Car­ni­val and Fest­ivals, the Sango Fest­iv­al, the New Yam Fest­iv­al, the Argun­gu Fish­ing Fest­iv­al and so many more can help drive Nigeria’s tourism.

Is there still hope? Cer­tainly! Oppor­tun­it­ies have been squandered but the poten­tial remains. With glob­al depend­ence on fossil fuels redu­cing at an increas­ing rate – which trans­lates to dimin­ish­ing rev­en­ue for an oil-depend­ent coun­try like Niger­ia – maybe, just maybe there would be a rethink and a con­cer­ted effort led by gov­ern­ment to tap into Nigeria’s tour­ism goldmine.

Source: Read the full op-ed at This Day.

Fea­tured image: The com­mon agama, red-headed rock agama, or rain­bow agama (Agama agama) is a spe­cies of liz­ard from the Agam­id­ae fam­ily found in most of sub-Saha­ran Africa, includ­ing Niger­ia where this image was taken. By Ser­gio Bos­caino (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr.