By Frank Meke.
I had wanted to take some deserved rest from the wahala of our tourism and culture industry. There is so much confusion all over the place, simply because we don’t have good administrators. What we have are task force officials. As we speak, lola Ade John, minister of tourism, has jetted out to Namibia via Angola. To do what? The lady didn’t tell us. For those who have been keeping daily tab on what is going in the ministry to which some of us celebrated the so-called ” stand alone” prefix with a ‘he’ goat as if corruption in Nigeria has come to end, the woman whose background is a mystery, just came back from a United Nations Tourism engagement in Spain just Thursday last week. What did she go to Spain to do? Some street people alleged she went to watch the Bull Fight game!
Now, some people talk about corruption to mean dipping of jezebel fingers to fret away money kept in someone’s care. The type powerful people do in public office but If we take that as our standard definition of Corruption, then we need to probe or audit our tourism ministry, and its “chop alone” agency, particularly nihotour.
But to do that effectively, you will need to petition the Economic and Financial Crime Commission ( Efcc), but I would prefer another anti corruption agency to do the job. Don’t ask why, ooo!.
A lawyer friend of mine last week told me that the law allows for an out of court settlement, meaning an offender or “chop alone” Director General can plead for linancy by returning the stolen loot( not all sha ) to buy freedom. Now, that is the law for you and the reason corruption will be difficult to curb in Nigeria tourism.
But let me ask you to go look up another definition of corruption. I took to researching the word corruption after the Association of Tourism journalists of Nigeria, denied that nihotour under Nura Kangiwa organised any training for registered members of this association, which has been in existence for over thirty years and professionally established to report tourism development in Nigeria.
The association which wrote to our travelling maestro lola Ade John alleged that nihotour procured ” strange faces” as tourism journalists and wants the” oyinbo” woman to probe it
This is what led to this intervention. So if nihotour through its public relations department ( I hear it’s a one man department), went out to deliberately procure or pimp “journalists” outside the recognised association, allegedly and actively supported , funded by Nura Kangiwa, the Director General, what does that translate to?
I need to let you know that you will be the judge in this case after we have taken a cursory look at the other meanings of corruption. Please note that I am only throwing out the corn and did not call any fowl to come eat. So I will present this matter of corruption very carefully, and so that one is not accused of calling kettle black
In the case of Anjet rage against nura Kangiwa, there was a picture of participants which has been scrutinised by the Victor Nze led association and found to have k leg, meaning there was no member of the Anjet registered body that was seen in the picture.
Now, we ask, is that nihotour picture a misrepresentation, jobbry , deception, or unscrupulousnes? Let me make this clear, dishonesty comes in various shapes and colours. And like said, our intellectual discussion takes basic root in finding out the definition or other synonyms of the word corruption, since to an average Nigerian, that words means stealing money, government money, even the money belonging to private organisations and all at that.
For me, and let add for us, it’s time we begin to think and evaluate character, integrity, and honesty as requisite baseline to auditing unwholesome behaviour, which in itself as I see it could be defined as corruption
Now, the synonyms of the corruption are unscrupulousness, deceit, deception, misconduct, wrongdoing, law breaking, sleaze, malfeasance, misrepresentation, jobbry, subversion, misapplication, misappropriation, purification, palm greasing, extortion, bribery, duplicity and so forth. You can add your own.
Those are dictionaries definitions but let me add our local content since we all in Nigeria have our local definition of corruption. To some , it is ‘k leg’, and to many other people, it is “eyes service”
It has been alleged that nura Kangiwa, the outgoing DG of nihotour whose tenure expires in August( he ought to proceed on leave now) , has deployed eyes service methodology in dealing with the minister of Tourism, lola Ade John. It is an old story that Nura Kangiwa vacated his office for Ade John to make her more comfortable even when her office at the federal secretariat is no less comfortable.
He also provided her with a comfy car for the ministerial assignments and logistics despite an alleged 600 million naira take-off grant for the ” new” ministry by the presidency. These gestures have directly or indirectly polarised the peace of the ministry as the directors, staff, and the permanent secretary are kept far away from the reach of the minister.
And I ask, if a house is divided against itself, what is that? If a third party deliberately and clandestinly cause a rift between two people who are supposed to work together for the good of all, how do we describe or define that tendency?
I am not saying that ministers or government officials should not accept gifts ooo but if such gifts would be miscountrued in the eyes of the public, na wetin be that? Unscrupulousnes, inducement, double dealing , duplicity, or immorality?
If I have two children, and deliberately, publicly identify, praise, and support him above others just because he or she gives me a ” better luxury comfort ” , how do we define such a parental preference?
If the government appoints an individual , for example, Nura Kangiwa of nihotour,( he was not appointed by Tinubu) and he used his office to divide the sector instead of being a mediator and a bridge builder for the growth and development of the sector, is he deserving of a reappointment?
If he is lacking in the gift of leadership and maturity, without even any known performance metrics, should he be allowed to ruin the industry and its desire for the best of tourism education expectations?
It’s sad that Nihotour’s brand perception is being made to dip to all time low by a system managed as cow ranch. It is worse off when the recruitment has no known human resources management ecosystem. In nihotour, you would probably find more of ground nut sellers, pimps and spokespersons with questionable integrity.
We are not by any chance lumping tested tourism teachers in nihotour together with the piggery rank and file around Nura Kangiwa, who are paid by government to bow and salute with their two hands in the air at the appearance or departure of the pharaoh of nihotour.
When a minister is not in charge and allegedly pretends not see the rot, corruption, misappropriation, misdemeanours, wrong doings, jobbry, purification, profiteering, palm greasing, misapplication, duplicity and acts bothering on misconduct, which may lead to the total collapse and growth of a sensitive sector like tourism and prefers to globe trot , what would you say of such a leader?
Like I said earlier, I didn’t call out any fowl, but only threw the corn to the streets so that the leeches in nihotour will know that time to stone them with rotten apples has come.
And for the private sector partners in “crime” of deception and malfeasance, you know yourselves. We await madam Ade John decision or intervention over the ongoing face off between Nura Kangiwa and the organised tourism press in Nigeria as represented by Anjet .
Though I doubt if the globe trotting owambe minister can do anything, we still have hope that she can still come back to tell us moonlight stories from other countries other than our Nigeria.
It’s on only in our sector that a minister will travel outside of the country and return , to travel and travel again and again, spending our money ( them say na their money) without briefing or sharing any information regarding such extravagant lifestyles at the expense of the country.
Someone like the DG Nihotour will boast that he is spending his money and so does not need to report back to the industry and concerned stakeholders. He forgot that nihotour is not his race course.
I will just advise President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to renew Nura Kangiwa tenure. He has failed on all from fronts, and where truely the security reports on our public officers or appointees are found wanting, Kangiwa should pack his bags and go back to his farm house in Nassarawa state. He is better fitted to relate with cows and horses than with an industry looking for the best global tourism education facilitators.
I don’t know when lola Ade John is due back to Nigeria, but if she ever comes back, let those who nominated her, please advise her to sit down and work or just just go with Nura Kangiwa to farm
Corn meal is expensive and scarce , so we need more farmers, real farmers, not palm greasers and troublers of the brethren pranting around as pharaohs.