IBADAN – A former executive of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) and CEO Dvine Travels and Tours, Olumuyiwa Salami, has called for the separation of the Tourism ministry from the information ministry both at the state and federal levels of government.
Salami, who is the former Vice President, NANTA South West Zone, in an interview with ametrocopy said merging the Tourism and information ministries together, which is the usual practice, has made it quite impossible to make money from tourism in the country.
‘The problem that we are having as a whole, even from the national to the state governments, they needed to separate Tourism from the Information ministries because if you look at it very well, most of the ministers and the commissioners we have at the state level are more of Information than Tourism and because of that, we have not been able to exploit the tourism potential in each state talk less of the national.’
‘If we are not getting it right at the federal level, it will reflect on the state and the local government level.’
Salami lamented the negligence of some state governors of the tourist sites which had led to some of them becoming irrelevant.
‘I hear some governors talk about Yankari site, but nothing has been done there, providing accommodation to the site has been a problem. You will see that most of them are not focused on Tourism, they are just good when it comes to Information.’
Salami, who is a foremost travel broker in Oyo state, said the state is blessed with enormous tourist sites that can generate income for the state government and provide job opportunities for the youths.
‘If you look at most of all unemployed youths, you will find out that they can create job opportunities from Tourism, and looking at it as a whole, government can generate a lot of IGR from Tourism, it’s not every time you will be depending on national.’
‘Take the museum, for instance, the government can include it in the school curriculum but what do we have now, most of the people in the museum have turned themselves to antiques when there is nobody coming to look at it.
The national and the state governments have a lot to do in tourism before passing it on to the local governments.’
Salami wondered how the potential of the tourist sites can be explored if the governments do not get it right.
According to him, sites like Igbo Oba, Adebisi Idikan’s Compound, Agodi Gardens, Captain Bower’s tower are of very high commercial value to the Oyo state government.
He called on the Oyo state Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde to call a stakeholders’ meeting where the government’s blueprint for the Tourism sector will be addressed.
