The issue of Nigeria’s vast tourism potential which has remained largely untapped took centre stage at a book launch which held at the Exhibition Pavilion in Abuja on Thursday evening.
The book titled, “What My Feet Saw” written by Gershon Ogbuluijah as a documentation of the author ‘s experience gathered over a 6-year period of travelling around Africa was unveiled by the Honourable Minister of Arts Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa.
“I’ve spent the past 6 years traveling around Africa and I’ve been to 14 countries and travelled by road for over 14,000 kilometers. So I want to say, the reason why I wrote this book is for education. Because tourism is educational and I want to freeze those things that I’ve learnt inside the book for people to read and get to know things about Africa.”
In his welcome remarks while buttressing the point that tourism is a source of education, the author cited the example of his grandfather who according to him never went to any formal school but before his passing was able to speak English, French and Spanish. This, Ogbuluijah said, was because he had af various times lived in Equitorial Guinea where he picked up the Spanish language sand Gabon where he picked up French.
Some of the countries he has been to include Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, The Gambia, Rwanda and Egypt. Others are: Uganda, Ethiopia, Equitorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritius. In addition he has also visited Lake Victoria and Victoria Falls.
The event began with a guided tour of picture frames showing different places of interest across Africa including Nigeria. The author who led the tour regaled guests with the interesting background stories of some of the places.
There was a brief music performance which featured Six Foot Plus who rendered his very popular hit, “E don do me.”
Performing the unveiling proper, the Minister read copiously from the book.
Speaking to newsmen, after the unveiling, the Minister disclosed that the Federal Government has big plans for the tourism sector including injection of funds and improvement of infrastructure and that government will be making a big announcement in this regard very soon.
“We are doing a lot of things. When you talk about infrastructure, next week we’re going to make an announcement about what we’re building, hotel wise in Abuja which is an amazing 5 star hotel that is coming up. What we’re doing is we’re integrating culture, creativity and tourism. So everything we’re doing should be based on our cultures and different activities throughout the year. So this is why we want to bring people into Nigeria for tourism, Musawa said.
” We have done the policy that will support the tourism industry. We’re going to inject some funding for the infrastructure. So there’s a number of things and I want people to keep up with the ministry for the next couple of weeks/months”, the Minister added.
While engaging with guests in a question and and answer session, Ogbuluijah affirmed his belief in Nigeria’s ability to take her proper place in the comity of Nations, saying,” Nigeria is still the giant of Africa. The giant may be ill but is a giant
On what he saw in other African countries which Nigeria is not currently doing, Ogbuluijah had this to say, “If you go to Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, these people are making money from making people come and see their forest reserve and what is there. For example if you want to go and see gorillas in Rwanda, you’re going to pay 1500dollars just to be able to enter the bush. We have gorillas in this country, apes, chimpanzees and we have several natural resorts in this country. There are places like Yankari game reserve, Gumti game reserve, these places are available for us to turn to money. I think that this country should be able to do more. There’s a lot to see in this country not just going out to see them.”
He however cautioned that challenges such as insecurity must be tackled for us to get it right.
“People travel for tourism so they can go back to tell people what they saw and if they travel and they are not sure of coming back, people will not go; so first of all we should solve the problem of insecurity, solve the problem of harassment on the road because you cannot come from your country and people are harassing you or you want to travel from let’s say Owerri to PH and you meet 75 checkpoints on the road. I travelled from Nairobi to the boundary of Tanzania, about 450km and there was not one stop on the road and no security breach. So these are the things we need to work on.”
Mr. Gershon Ogbuluijah has a robust profile which includes being a member of the Board of Rivers State Waste Management Agency and holds a fellowship of the Nigerian Society of Engineers.
He loves the outdoor life, he’s a long distance runner, he has run a marathon, he loves camping and hiking. He’s an avid adventurer and an internationally recognized mountaineer having successfully climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2022. This is not by any chance exhaustive.
The event was well attended by men and women from all works of life.