As Nigeria today joins the rest of the world to mark World Tourism Day, a public affairs analyst, Mr Azeez Adediran has highlighted some challenges the tourism sector is facing in the area of insecurities, infrastructural decay, environmental and perception issues.
Adediran, who featured on the Crest Breakfast Show on Wednesday, also berated the Oyo State Government for planing to sell and convert some major tourist centers in Ibadan like the Trans Amusement Park into private business venture, rather than investing in them
According to him, “Trans amusement park is one of the best heritage of this state but right now you can’t tell me that you want to sell trans amusement park or even convert it to a housing estate, of what value?Gradually you are killing the tourist sector of your state whether you like it or not“
He further advised the state government to diversify their investment by having an investment model that will sustain the tourism sector hereby improving the economy
“Nigeria doesn’t have that kind of infrastructure for now I’m sorry to, we have the tourist board and we have the DG but what are they doing, we’ve not been doing anything like reviving or evolving overtime, so it’s high time we get serious over this business“
While commenting on how to improve our monetary policies, Adediran advised the new Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Olayemi Cardoso, to clear the backlogs of the foreign exchange payment, build the nation’s foreign reserves by reducing oil theft and increase interest rate more than the inflation rate.
He also commended the CBN boss for not revealing his whole strategies as it is a way to prevent some cabal from sabotaging his plans.
