By Wale Ojo-Lanre, Esq.
I have read with considerable interest the article titled “Ekiti Tourism Needs Partnership, Not Division,” written by Mr Olalekan Ojo.
Ordinarily, I would have allowed the piece to stand as one man’s contribution to public discourse. Criticism, after all, is one of the necessary companions of public service. But when an intervention proceeds from a fundamental misunderstanding of the very issue it seeks to interrogate, clarification becomes necessary—not to win an argument, but to prevent a distortion of the public record.
Let me begin from the point on which Mr Ojo and I completely agree: Ekiti tourism needs partnership.
Indeed, that was precisely my point.
The fundamental weakness in his argument is that, having correctly identified partnership as desirable, he proceeds to conflate private investment with corporate partnership, commercial activity with corporate responsibility, and business success with institutional collaboration.
They are not the same.
A company may invest billions of naira in a business, employ hundreds of people, construct magnificent facilities and generate substantial revenue. Those facts may establish that it is a serious investor and successful commercial enterprise. They do not, standing alone, establish that the company is sufficiently engaged with the broader destination ecosystem within which its investment operates.
That distinction is at the heart of this matter.
I have never said that Glocient Hospitality Limited has not invested in Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort. That would be absurd.
The investment is visible. The transformation of the resort is visible. Its facilities are visible. Its commercial activities are visible.
And I have repeatedly promoted Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort as one of the flagship tourism assets of Ekiti State.
What I addressed before the Ekiti State House of Assembly was something fundamentally different: the level of corporate partnership and institutional collaboration between the operator of one of Ekiti’s most important tourism assets and the government agency charged with promoting Ekiti as a destination.
That distinction must not be lost.
Glocient’s investment in Ikogosi is not philanthropy. It is a commercial investment undertaken pursuant to an arrangement under which the company operates the resort. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Indeed, we welcome the investment and sincerely want the company to succeed.
But building and operating a successful resort cannot, by itself, be equated with supporting the wider tourism-development ecosystem of the state.
Ikogosi does not exist in a vacuum.
Ikogosi sells Ekiti, and Ekiti sells Ikogosi.
The roads that take visitors there, the security architecture that gives tourists confidence, the destination image of Ekiti, our festivals, cultural attractions, government promotion, media visibility, tour circuits and other tourism assets all form part of the ecosystem from which Ikogosi derives value.
That is why destination development requires collaboration.
And this is where Mr Ojo’s argument runs into a structural problem.
He reduces the issue substantially to a ₦4.5 million sponsorship request and then constructs his defence around the proposition that a private company cannot be compelled to honour every request for sponsorship.
But who ever suggested otherwise?
Certainly not me.
Yes, the Bureau wrote Glocient requesting sponsorship.
There was nothing improper about that.
More importantly, it was not a request asking Glocient to simply hand ₦4.5 million to government for some undefined programme.
The proposal was for a dedicated “Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort Day” at the Akwaaba African Travel Market 2026.
And who was that programme designed principally to promote?
Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort itself.
The Bureau proposed that Glocient should effectively own a day, brand it, showcase the resort, meet travel buyers, engage tour operators and market its accommodation, retreats and tourism packages directly to the travel market.
The proposal included dedicated press and media exposure for Ikogosi, presentation of resort photographs and videos, business-to-business engagements, interaction with tour operators and travel agents, and opportunities to sell bookable Ikogosi packages.
Indeed, the Bureau specifically invited Glocient to participate with its senior sales and marketing representatives, brochures, accommodation rate sheets, bookable packages, roll-up banners, professional photographs and videos, branded souvenirs and promotional stay vouchers.
In plain language, we were asking Glocient to partner with us to sell Glocient’s own product while we sold Ekiti.
That fact is central to understanding the matter.
If this was simply about extracting ₦4.5 million from Glocient, why was the Bureau interested in its physical presence, its marketing personnel, its brochures, its accommodation packages and its promotional materials?
The answer is simple:
The issue was partnership, not money.
When financial sponsorship became difficult, the philosophy did not change: come along. Participate. Bring your materials. Bring your marketing people. Let us jointly sell Ikogosi and Ekiti.
That is why portraying my position as the reaction of a disappointed public official whose sponsorship request was rejected may make an attractive narrative, but it does not withstand scrutiny.
It avoids the real question:
What should be the relationship between the private operator of a major publicly owned tourism asset and the public institution responsible for marketing the destination within which that asset operates?
That is the conversation worth having.
Mr Ojo points to the billions invested in Ikogosi.
Good.
I applaud investment.
He points to the increasing patronage of the resort.
Excellent.
That is what everybody wants.
He points to employment and infrastructure.
Commendable.
But none of those facts logically answers the question of institutional partnership.
A bank may construct a magnificent headquarters and employ thousands of Nigerians. That does not automatically answer questions about its corporate citizenship.
A telecommunications company may invest billions in infrastructure and operate profitably. That does not mean questions about its relationship with its host communities, regulators or wider operating environment suddenly become illegitimate.
Investment and corporate responsibility may complement each other, but they are not interchangeable.
The Bureau was not conducting an audit of Glocient’s profitability. Neither was it imposing a compulsory levy.
It was seeking partnership in destination marketing.
If funding was unavailable, collaboration remained possible.
Participation remained possible.
Joint promotion remained possible.
Marketing engagement remained possible.
Technical collaboration remained possible.
The provision of promotional materials remained possible.
Glocient could still stand alongside the state’s tourism establishment at a strategic tourism marketplace and say:
Come to Ekiti. Come to Ikogosi. Stay with us. Explore Ekiti.
That is destination partnership.
Mr Ojo also refers to a previous ₦5 million sponsorship and proceeds to cite activities involving companies within the wider Cavista corporate family.
Where those claims are accurate, they deserve acknowledgement. Partnership should never be discussed selectively.
But there is another logical difficulty here.
Agbeyewa Farms and Glocient Hospitality may belong within the same corporate family, but expenditure by a sister company on a football competition cannot automatically be tendered as evidence of Glocient Hospitality’s institutional relationship with the Ekiti State Bureau of Tourism Development.
Corporate relationships do not erase corporate identities.
Neither does one previous sponsorship create permanent immunity from legitimate observations about the quality of a present working relationship.
If Glocient supported a programme yesterday, we should acknowledge it.
Where it partners effectively today, we should acknowledge it.
And where gaps exist tomorrow, the Bureau must equally be free to identify them.
That is not hostility.
That is institutional responsibility.
There is also something curious about the suggestion that legitimate public commentary concerning an investor somehow “jeopardises investment, partnership potential, job opportunities and growth.”
Surely, private investment cannot be so fragile that every critical observation by government must be suppressed for fear that an investor may feel offended.
Partnership is not silence.
It is not flattery.
It is not the surrender by a public institution of its responsibility to say what it considers necessary for the development of the sector entrusted to it.
A mature partnership should be strong enough to accommodate disagreement.
Indeed, if we genuinely desire sustainable public-private partnerships, government must be able to commend investors when they perform well, protect legitimate investments and, at the same time, engage investors candidly where stronger collaboration is required.
I therefore find the personal postscript to Mr Ojo’s otherwise legitimate intervention particularly unfortunate.
He asks whether I have become a “political jobber,” whether I am acting for “survival,” whether I am “craving for relevance,” whom I am “trying to impress,” and concludes that I am “fast losing” my qualities.
Those are colourful questions.
But they are not arguments.
They do not tell us whether the Bureau’s expectations of partnership are unreasonable.
They do not invalidate the correspondence between the Bureau and Glocient.
They do not establish that investment and corporate responsibility mean the same thing.
And they do not demonstrate that operating a commercially successful tourism facility automatically constitutes sufficient engagement with the public institution charged with developing and marketing the destination.
Most importantly, they add little to the serious tourism conversation that Mr Ojo says he wants us to have.
I remain the same Wale Ojo-Lanre whose name my brother says was familiar to him during his Unity days at Usi—the journalist trained to ask questions, interrogate claims, examine evidence and speak plainly.
Public office has not extinguished that responsibility.
If anything, it has enlarged it.
My responsibility as Director-General is not to protect the feelings of government officials or private investors. It is to advance the tourism interest of Ekiti State: to encourage investment, build partnerships, promote our assets and, where necessary, identify gaps that may prevent the sector from realising its full potential.
And let me make one thing abundantly clear:
Glocient is not an enemy of Ekiti tourism.
It is an important investor in Ekiti tourism.
Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort is an important component of our destination offering.
We want Glocient to succeed.
We want Ikogosi to flourish.
We want its rooms occupied, its conference facilities busy, its employees prosperous and its tourism products sold nationally and internationally.
But precisely because Glocient and Ikogosi are important, more—not less—should be expected from the partnership between the company and the tourism ecosystem of Ekiti State.
That expectation is not antagonism.
It is recognition of importance.
The Bureau will continue to promote Ikogosi because Ikogosi is an inseparable part of the Ekiti tourism story. We will continue to invite Glocient to tourism programmes. We will continue to seek its collaboration. We will continue to place Ikogosi before tour operators, travel writers, investors and prospective visitors.
And we will continue to speak frankly whenever we believe such partnerships can be strengthened.
Mr Ojo titled his intervention “Ekiti Tourism Needs Partnership, Not Division.”
On that, there is absolutely no disagreement.
But partnership cannot be defined merely by how much money a company has invested in its own commercial operation.
Partnership means showing up.
Partnership means engagement.
Partnership means institutional cooperation.
Partnership means seeing beyond one’s immediate balance sheet to the health of the destination that sustains the business.
It means understanding that when Ekiti tourism grows, Ikogosi grows; and when Ikogosi grows, Ekiti benefits.
That is the ecosystem we are trying to build.
So, rather than reduce a legitimate institutional observation to a personality contest between Wale Ojo-Lanre and Glocient Hospitality, let us return to the substance.
There is room for Glocient.
There is room for the Bureau.
There is room for communities.
There is room for other investors.
There is room for criticism.
There is room for disagreement.
And, above all, there must always be room for better partnership.
Because ultimately, neither Glocient nor the Bureau owns the Ekiti tourism destination.
Ekiti people do.
Their interest must therefore remain bigger than any company, any public official, any sponsorship request—and certainly bigger than any disagreement.
Wale Ojo-Lanre, Esq.
Director-General
Ekiti State Bureau of Tourism Development
