The Minister for Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Hanatu Musawa, has said Nigeria’s tourism sector is plagued by banditry and poor infrastructure.
Naija News reports that Musawa said by the time she took office, there was almost zero funding for the sector.
In an interview with Arise News, the Minister decried the lack of attention from the government on the sector.
She explained that lack of road network, poor electricity, banditry and general insecurity were challenges affecting the nation’s tourism sector.
“When we came on board, there were a lot of areas that I felt were not really nurtured enough. I think the problem in the tourism sector from the beginning is Nigeria has not really paid enough attention. Government has never really paid enough attention.
“You speak about the likes of Obudu. We do have so many game reserves all over the country. There are so many sites all over the country, but government has really always put it on the back burner.
“When I came on board, I found that there was just nothing, no funding, no investment. And, of course, you have the areas of insecurity and banditry and stuff like that and lack of just basic infrastructures such as power and access to get to certain sites. So things like that really impeded the growth of tourism.
“And the other thing was that the domestic tourism that we could have really benefited from as a nation was not really encouraged from state to state. So these are some of the challenges we found, especially the lack of infrastructure. I mean, if you talk about tourism and you don’t have the proper infrastructure in place,” he said.
The Minister stated that her administration was conducting proper assessment of the sector on best way to maximize its potential.
“And at the same time, government has never really funded that particular ministry properly. So we’re doing a proper assessment of the sector and to see the best ways that we can really approach a really successful sort of outing for the tourism industry. And I think we’ve kind of found a way,” she added.
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