Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the
Federal Government has demonstrated that it has the political will to drive
sustainable tourism in the country,
Speaking at a panel of African Ministers of Tourism, who met on the
sidelines of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Marrakech, Morocco,
on Thursday, the Minister said, however, that for tourism to be sustainable,
it must first be put on a sound footing.
”We have a rich diversity in our culture and tourism sector. We have so much
that the world wants to see. We have stories that the world wants to hear.
”But the challenge for us is to leverage our huge diversity to make
tourism the next oil in Nigeria,” he said.
Mohammed said that as a mark of its political will, the
present Administration is reviving the Presidential Council on Tourism
(PCT) to drive
the development of tourism in the country.
Already, he said, the Steering Committee of the PCT has met to prepare
the agenda for the PCT, which is expected to meet very soon and be presided
over by the President.
The Minister also said that since tourism cannot thrive without
security, transparency
and good infrastructure, the government is investing in massive infrastructural
development (roads, rail, power, etc, adding: ”Security has improved
drastically,
especially in the North-east where Boko Haram has been decimated.”
”The government also puts a lot of premium on transparency, which is
required for
boosting investor confidence and encouraging tourism. The fight
against corruption
has been ratcheted up, and no one is deemed to be a sacred cow as far
as the fight
against corruption is concerned,” he said
”With all modesty, the present administration in my country has been
working hard to
move tourism from the margins to the mainstream, especially because tourism has
been identified as one of the sectors upon which the government’s
economic diversification is
anchored. Tourism has now been brought to the front burner,” Alhaji
Mohammed said.
