Amachree calls on IGP to create tourism police

The Father of Nigerian Tourism, Chief Mike Amachree has called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to, as a matter of urgency, create a tourism police department.

Amachree who was reacting to the recent incident at the Kajuru Castle, Kajuru in Kaduna State, said the creation of a Police tourism department would help safeguard lives and property of tourists.

He condemned the attack on harmless tourists in kajuru by bandits and said it must not be allowed to happen again. “Tourism is big business and the current upsurge in packaging local tours which has direct positive impact on host communities, should not be allowed to die as a result of insecurity.

“What happened in Kajuru Castle is so sad. We may lose both local and foreign tourists because of that unless we do something to stop this new development, and make sure it does not happen again. That is why I’m calling on the IGP, without any further delay, to create a department that would serve as tourism police as it is done in Egypt, Mexico and other countries.

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“We must understand that tourism is a business of movement and travel. So, if people don’t move and don’t travel as result of insecurity that would led to the collapse of tourism business.

“The tourist police would be in charge of guarding places such as museums, hotels, event centres, tourist sites, tourist buses as the move from one destination to another, beaches, fast food joints and other places were local and international tourists visit.”

In the light of this development, Amachree also called for a meeting of all tourism industry practitioners and stakeholders to meet and map out strategies on how to stop the unfortunate incident that happened in Kajuru Castle from repeating.

It would be recalled that on Easter Friday, some bandits attacked a popular tourist site in Kaduna State, the Kajuru Castle. In the exchange of gunfire between the security men and the bandits, two tourists were hit by bullets and they died.