Nigeria is a bundle of contradictions.We are a confused set of people. Some of the leaders don’t know what leadership status requires They don’t know what we really want as a nation or what we really need to survive.
And unfortunately we the followers are not better. We are too light in our thinking and our mental calibration has been twisted and warped by the deliberate malfeasance of the system and the dubious process of governance. This and others have produced a multitude of nincompoops who do not know exactly what is good for them.
We all agree that Nigeria is not developed. The basic cause of our underdevelopment is not rooted in the lack of resources niether is it planted in the dearth of human capital to turn things around
Nigeria is over blessed with all the resources which a country needs to rule the world.
With millions of very brilliant, strong, energetic and talented human beings and a landmass which is configured geographically with all resources one can think of, Nigeria is not expected to be crawling.
However, the fault is not in our stars rather in us, the people of Nigeria who have decided to turn our priorities upside down.
Some of those who ruled this country in the past were short sighted individuals who refused to expand the scope of their national goals beyond the rims of their spectacles.
They failed to expand the economy of this country beyond the gushing of the black crude which has inflicted more pains, both by retarding the growth and germination of other more viable economic sectors, just because of the cheap money it generates.
The worst part of the case is that whenever our overdependence on crude oil foists upon us chronic suffering and excruciating pains through oil glut, the government of the day will remember that there is urgent need to diversify!
This scenario reared its ugly head four years ago when this present government came into power and the scourge of recession seized the throat of the nation.
There must be an alternate source of revenue!
Then, solid Mineral, tourism, etc came up strongly
The Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, was up to the task telling the world that tourism was it.
While there were torrents and positive acts and activities in the Ministry of Solid Minerals under the then minister, Dr Kayode Fayemi, nothing seriously tangible came on stream from Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s stable.
Honestly, I do not place the failure of this on the doorstep of Alhaji Mohammed, rather, I place it squarely on the table of Mr President who I see does not understand the importance of tourism to the economy of a nation.
And it is sad that none of the presidential candidates in this country has come up with any thought on tourism as the 2019 general election approaches. None of them has a blueprint or even mention anything about tourism.
In fact, it is shameful that none of them has been specific on the particular development agenda for the nation as related to tourism.
And this is a sector which countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, the Gambia, US, UK, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe have used to turn round their economies without borrowing from the World Bank.
Nigeria has all the necessary tourism resources and items. A countable number of these items are haphazardly developed. It is a national embarrassment that Nigeria, a country with a total land area of 923, 770 square kilometres, over 190 million, 853 km coastal line which is blessed by nature cannot boast of 20 well develop tourism sites!
The faulty is in us. And in our decision maker who doesn’t see the necessity of bringing or making tourism a major issue in economic planning. For the past years, except eight years of the ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, who created a separate ministry of tourism, inaugurated a presidential committee on Tourism, appointed some competent fellows to drive the sector, all other Presidents have refused to make Tourism an issue.
Sad enough, the modicum of achievements and the vestiges of a growing tourism economy were truncated by President Muhammadu Buhari who merged the ministry of tourism and made it a unit under the Ministry of Information and Culture.
And I am afraid, that with none of the presidential candidates of the political parties talking about tourism, this sector may go down.
and then