By Frank Meke
Lola Ade John, Nigeria’s minister of tourism, has been more of a globe trotting minister, squandering scarce national resources, blindly seeking global tourism attention at expense of building a strong home based tourism business environment.
In less than three months, the lady ex banker has computed her way to Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Namibia without any tourism gains to our renewed hope tourism economic recovery agenda.
After a shambolic flash in the pan tour to Ekiti, lagos and a slap in yhe wrist photo show in Benue state where her pet agency, National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism packaged her to present certificates to procured rural poor stakeholders lola Ade John during a not too recent Nigerian Television Authority programme, scored herself low , blaming her poor marks to lack of tourism management experience.
Sequenced and shielded away from the private sector players and her ministry’s operational staff, lola Ade John , operates the tourism affairs of the country from a donated office from nihotour, with a luxury car and other pecks befitting a minister to bargain.
Her trip to Saudi Arabia remained a mystery to the industry, and with no clear-cut purpose or official delegation except for the presence of her favourite Director General of Nihotour, Nura Kangiwa who is always her beck and call. Her UN Tourism meeting, which took place in Madrid, Spain, was also opaque, with no known official delegation list or leadership of Nigerian tourism Federation and the Nigerian tourism press at the event.
Emboldened by her new unquestionable travel lifestyle allegedly funded by a cash-strapped federal government, our new Queen of Tourism, headed out again to Namibia a week ago with her tourism man Friday, Nura Kangiwa whose only achievement in office is prant around cooking food for television cameras.
Sadly, Lola Ade John has polarised her ministry and agencies, pitching nihotour outgoing DG, Nura Kangiwa against the DG of Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation, Folarin Coker on one hand and her inexperienced aides against the ministry’s technocrats whom she allegedly wanted removed for being too old for the job.
The Organised private sector organisations led by Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria ( ftan) have ignored her failings after several meetings to keep her on track with the mandatory national tourism development assignments. No doubt, the floundering queen of tourism has lost grip of the sector, maybe has restored to a new foreign travel lifestyle to while away time before her removel from office .
In fact, concerned industry operators are worried about the funny tipsy like tourism steps of the minister, praying for a change that could impact and reform the sector for effective delivery of the sustainable gains of tourism economy to Nigerians.
Come July 10, we heard that key stakeholders angry with the failings of nihotour under Kangiwa, may head to the National Assembly public hearing on restructuring of government agencies to call for the vacation of the Nihotour Act in order to return it either to the ministry as a department or merge it with ntda where it was originally a tourism training department of the Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation, now Nigeria Tourism Development Authority.
