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Minister Laments Impact Of Insecurity On Tourism Sector

 

The Minister of Tourism Lola Ade-John has said that her ministry is collaborating with the Ministry of Education to include history and tourism into the primary school curriculum. 

The minister is insisting that insecurity bedevilling the country has greatly affected the tourism sector of the country, which she stressed that should be Nigeria’s number one revenue generator, surpassing oil and gas.

The minister stated this when paying a courtesy visit to Taraba state deputy Governor, Aminu Alkali.

The minister’s visit is to explore collaboration between the state, and federal governments and investors.

The visit is also aimed at harnessing the tourism potential in Taraba investment opportunities in resorts and leveraging domestic tourism for community empowerment.

 

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In her words, ” the truth is that a lot of countries have security challenges and I think, our challenges are more than just security as we complain about petrol price hike, power supply and these things also encourages insecurity and it is real”

” The government is clamping down on security-related issues but it has already affected the tourism sector ”

” One of the reasons why we also want to encourage community-based tourism is to bring back the pride of our country”

” If we protect our own, we will not allow people to come and spoil our livelihood”

” We are working with other agencies in the federal government like education for instance where we want to ensure that we teach history and tourism at primary school level so that they lead and be tour guides ”

” Every country has its challenges, unfortunately I can say we were used to a certain lifestyle in Nigeria where we had almost everything for virtually nothing”

” Things have changed globally and anywhere you go now you pay a lot more for what you need ”

” We also need to change the way we think, we need to change some of our habits”

” I do not want to sound petty, maybe we need to reduce some of our social parties, maybe the kind of food we eat ”

” There was a time someone will sit with 6 pieces of meat at a sitting, those times have gone, yes we need to eat but we need to eat what we really need, not what we want ”

” There are so many other challenges but its for a short time, the government is really empathetic about what is going on and we are doing everything possible to ameliorate some of these problems and its not intentional, but we have to face it”

Earlier in his remark, the state commissioner for heritage and ecotourism Joseph Nagombe emphasised that the minister is doing everything possible to right the wrong of the sector.

” For the first time after 8 years she resuscitated the tourism stakeholders meeting for state commissioners of tourism where Taraba state was represented with the approval of the state Governor Agbu Kefas ”

”Taraba State Ministry of Heritage and Ecotourism presented some significant tourism sites and their potential in Taraba state which includes the Mambilla Plateau, Gashaka Gumti National Park, Kashimbilla Dam, Nwonyo lakeside in IBI, Marmara crocodile pond Wukari, river Donga basin forest in Kurmi, Ngada cultural landscape ”

” The state Governor is making efforts to revamp the tourism sector of the state through tourism development, hospitality, tourism infrastructure ”

Governor Agbu Kefas represented by his deputy Aminu Alkali is seeking the collaboration of the federal government to attract investors to develop the tourism sector of of just Taraba but Nigeria.

The state government is insisting that lots of untapped tourism potentials abound in Taraba which requires responsible and legitimate approach to harness.

The minister alongside the Taraba state government delegation and investors have since departed to the Mambilla Plateau, Gashaka Gumti National Park and several other tourist destination sites to look at ways of investing and improving the sector.

Opeoluwani Akintayo

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Opeoluwani Akintayo

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