nigeria, time for new expectations LATEST REPORT June 12th, 2000	NIGERIA A new business climate Business - Economy - Lean and clean - Core issues - Home truth - Oil business - Private sector - Banking INTERVIEW WITH CHIEF OJO MADUEKWE HONORABLE MINISTER OF CULTURE AND TOURISM August 17 th 1999 Forbes: nigeria is attracting international attention due to its democratic process and the civilian government of President Olusegun Obasanjo. What will be the role of your ministry within the new politics and economic reforms? Chief Maduekwe: As you know it is the Ministry of culture and Tourism and if we look at the Goals of the ministry from the perspective of both Culture and Tourism within the wider context of the goals of the administration and have regard to the fact that it is a new ministry and a pioneer ministry. The government takes the decision that a major source of under development, a major explanation of under-development not only in nigeria but all of Africa is the failure to link culture with development ; as a matter of fact the United Nations as I am sure you are aware is taking some initiatives in this respect when you come with the decayed on culture and development. There has been so much tissue rejection of other plans and fusion of resources, foreign aid in those days and later on foreign direct investment which did not quite yield the kind of results that we expected and that at some time led to considerable pessimism on the part of development planners and so under this administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo the idea is to now re-visit the issue of development within the context of our culture, of our experience as a people who have been around for a long, long time. We have a civilization, we have a heritage, we have a world view, norms and values which have enabled us survive as humanity for centuries. Before of course the disruption of the slave trade and colonialism we had survived. The thing is to now go back to spirituality of out a new self image, one that definitely will not tolerate corruption, oppression or mis-rule in any form and that healthy self image should be able to drive development. Our duty here in the Ministry of Culture is to show nigeria a mirror of themselves. A total picture that will accentuate the positive and that self re-discovery will be able to raise motivation, raise commitment, create a better sense of the country as you know this is a large country, with a population of 120 million people of at least 300 ethnic nationalities. So the duty of the ministry of Culture is to create a greater respect for each other’s culture. It is a multi-cultural society and in a diversities of cultures fashion out a sense of a nation , not just a country, but a sense or a nation and for people to make ultimate commitment towards development. They have to respect the diversity of the nation and even feel that there is a nation worth living for and worth dying for. And in the traditional mode of showcasing our heritage. The usual festivals will definitely continue to enjoy attention or even more attention now . I just came back from Ghana where the Panafest, the pan-African festival of arts took place so there is a strong commitment on the part of this government to continue to identify with arts and culture but we are taking that beyond song and dance which was the theme of my remarks at the color film in Ghana, we want to move entertainment, we want to move from entertainment to empowerment, we are not dropping entertainment, but we want to go beyond it and get a message that can empower our people away from poverty, away from urban decay, away from failure of corruption and all the indices of under-development. Tourism of course becomes a very, very attractive theatre to test all this notion. The reason is that in tourism now we can present nigeria to the world in terms of lost opportunities for the rest of the world. We want to let people know that if they have had a fantastic time in other African countries then it is difficult to imagine how much more fantastic it could have been for them if they had been to nigeria. For the simple reason that nigeria is at least in terms of bio-diversity, in terms of cultural types and even in terms of vegetation and so on. nigeria is like five African countries rolled up into one. So you get value for your money if you come to nigeria. If the Africans is of other countries will enable them promote tourism then the most African of all African nation has a very strong competitive agent. So Culture here impacts on tourism there we are also being careful to make that tourism is protected from tourism because we are able to learn from the experience of other countries so we want to make sure that what people come to observe in the context of tourism is preserved for them is not spoilt by the commercial issues of tourism .So that they can come again and come again, so we doing that of course our concept of tourism is much bigger than what the commissioner view will because in nigeria you’ve got the sheer diversity of flora and fauna, eco-tourism is going to be a major part of what we are going to do here, all those gorillas and orang outangs that tourists are used to seeing in other parts of the world, we have quite a lot of them here. Those who are bird watchers can have a field day in the wetlands of Hadeija and the kind of cultural landscape we have are so terrific in their beauty, we have just had one of them listed as a world eco stop by UNESCO, so eco-tourism is going to be quite strong and we are also looking at cultural tourism in terms of our artifacts and monuments and so on and so forth. And because of the tremendous business opportunities that exist in nigeria which have not been tapped, partly because of the years of isolation, we expect that business tourism will be on the incline. So this is going to be a very, very busy ministry, that is pivotal and strategic in the overall plan for this administration to ensure that nigeria moves to the next millenium, a very developed country, a modern state and an organized polity. Forbes: You said that there is a great potential in the tourism industry, but unfortunately the picture is not that rosy today in nigeria ; There is potential but what are the problems that you ministry will be facing to improve infrastructure, attract investors and change perceptions? Chief Maduekwe: Our problem is that in our case perception has proved to be stronger than reality. The perception which is you know that I do know is in terms of ignorance about nigeria, many people do not even seem to know that this is country of such wonderful diversity so very important segment of the global society will suffer from benign neglect, so to speak in the area of information about nigeria, it has been a process that has been on for quite some time, part of it has been is because we have had moderate leaders, right from independence our leaders have been very moderate, they have not been very radical they have not been anti-west. In those days to attract attention you had to be anti-west and then run to Russia and wave your Marxist credentials and of course United States or Britain or even Belgium would take notice and that could make a country important because the ideological posturing of its leadership will be a radical one and so for this it was easier for people to know of Ghana under Nkrumah than nigeria under Balewa so benign neglect of nigeria has been on much longer than many people seem to remember because of the moderation of our leadership, but over the years we also suffered the same epidemic that swept through Latin America and some Asian countries and also some African countries, namely long period of military rule and in our own case under the military the nation drifted into civil war and under the military it got to the brink since 1993 and up till the transition to democratic rule under President Olusegun Obasanjo. Before he came in the nation was definitely in trouble, it was isolated because of military rule and the isolation that arose from our violation of human rights and so on and so forth. The down turn in economic fortunes of the country naturally led to all kinds of practices, even though we do not make excuses for those practices were over-blown in the minds of western media, with advance fee fraud and drug pushing and so on and so forth, which we still insist are no where to near what happens in Mexico with regards to drug pushing and people still go to Mexico and south of the border to visit and all that . And in our own case the evidence is clear that at official levels that the commitment to deal with those vices are very strong and very successful so this stereotyping of nigeria has definitely adversely affected investments in nigeria, tourism in nigeria and you go to some airports in United States I’m not even sure I’ve seen something in Europe you find somewhere sign board go to Muritala Mohmammed airport Ikeja and that would be the sign you will see of any airport in the world apparently it is safer to fly to Kabul airport in Afghanistan in the minds of the minds of people who are putting these notices, it could be in an airport somewhere in Iowa, some obscure airport in Iowa, where hardly anybody don’t even about what nigeria is and you see them saying don’t go to Muritala Mohammed airport in nigeria and that has been grossly unfair and so we are talking about lack of fairness in global society that is supposed to know better in terms of perception of nigeria, in terms of deployment of negative images that are not more serious than elsewhere in the world. Insecurity in nigeria until New York cleaned up its act there were more murders in New York than any city in nigeria and that didn’t stop anybody from going to New York I’m sure that Johannesburg has more murders than any city in nigeria, people are still flocking to South Africa. The point I am making is that between perception and reality lies the truth about nigeria, we think that there is lot more fun to have in coming to nigeria with a lot more genuine money to make in coming to nigeria than there is in the vulnerability any tourist faces in terms of the being a victim of mutual greed because of the advance fees scam is a result of mutual greed, those people who push the papers called 419 they are playing on the greed of the gullible European or American who is told that there is 30 million US dollars floating somewhere in the central bank, and all you need to do as an American or European is supply your bank account and then this money passes through your bank account and then you share this money, fifty -fifty with this guy from nigeria. Any right thinking person should know that it means that money you haven’t worked for is being offered to you and if one is vigilant one should feel definitely uncomfortable with that but people fall into that kind of trap because they are greedy themselves and the next thing they do is to go to the news papers, Washington Post, maybe Forbes and say that nigeria is terrible, to many criminals and so on and this is not so, it is not true. Forbes: It is true that in recent months there has been an improved climate and this can definitely help create a room for opportunities What will be the main strategy of your policy to gear up this sector? Chief Maduekwe: As I’m not tired of saying, I don’t think that I will re-invent this wheel here, although it is a new ministry but it is not a new concept, tourism had featured in one way or the other in the nomenclature of ministries in this country, either as trade and tourism or as commerce and tourism and so on and so forth but without harping too much on the past, but in order to re-emphasize the point I made earlier, part of the problem of what I said earlier on, negative image, other one has been also with petroleum so is easy available and the pert-dollars made it difficult for previous governments to take a strategic look at an alternative and equally viable source of earning foreign exchanges, so our strategy here is simply to go back to reports and recommendations and strategies which had already been designed over the years, upgrade them, update them in the light of present day realities and above implement, implement, implement. The problems had been lack of political will to implement recommendations that arose from policy workshops, suggestions are bound every day in our newspapers, I have a feeling that no African countries perhaps has more tourism pages on newspapers than in nigeria there is so much enthusiasm so much excitement on the part of the media out there as to what can happen in tourism, so what I intend to do is provide leadership to be up-front and be a very strong and convincing sales man for industry. I will be visible and I am going to be mobile and going to be very evangelical about it and I’m going to first convince our elites about domestic tourism, I’m not going to disturb them from visiting your beautiful countries I was there with the President, we came to Brussels lovely place they will not stop going to Brussels but if they always go to Brussels or New York let them also co-join that with visiting Obudu Cattle Ranch or go to the Ikogosi warm springs. Now because we just want to implement that makes my job easier, if we were inventing a way we would spend the next 6 months trying to get there. I am really very heartened by the kind of support that I’, getting from the private sectors, there leaders have been here to tourism to pledge their support and to say that they are ready and available and willing to invest money so that is on the domestic side only and on the international tourism side we will make our more voice clearly heard, the world tourism organization we will also let the world know that nigeria which has returned to democracy and which in the dark days of dictatorship we were not a belligerent country we have never been and under democracy we are a friendlier country, we are naturally hospitable and since we are hospitable we are all over the world, those nigerians you meet in New York who are very successful surgeons, I have a brother in law who is one Chicago those nigeria you meet who are professors in Harvard and Cornell Universities, it will be nice to know where they come from and what gives them the vitality which Europe and America has become fascinated with. So we will be aggressive in marketing the potentials of this country, tourism wise Forbes: In terms of attracting foreign investors are you planning on introducing incentives or specific programs to attract those investors? Chief Maduekwe: We have proposals here, they are still at the stage of proposals, and I can let you into some of them we talked about having tourism promotion zones we tend to designate parts of the country as areas that can be receptive to strategic investments for tourism by so doing encourage the upgrading of the infrastructure in those place, whether in terms of electricity or road networks or telecommunications, the arguments of course is that with scarce resources are put in there for those scarce resources will make a good return on investment, so that money will be used to upgrade other areas. The part of incentives for people who will invest in those place will be in addition to external infrastructures which I had already mentioned (telecommunications, road network and so on) will be some kind of tax relieves so that if you invest in tourism in one place you likely get some tax relief we intend to look at the whole issue of incentives on those terms in a strategic manner and link them up very closely with what we think what the industry can quickly benefit. Forbes: Some hotels have being privatized but the prospects on this sector depends on the overall visiting rate. What is your opinion about that? Chief Maduekwe: We have a commitment to privatization as a government. This is irrevocable, again I’d like t o mention that during the global tour which I was privileged to be with the President throughout Africa, Europe and America, the issue came up everywhere and he reiterated his commitment to the world bank and the IMF we therefore in this sub-sector of tourism we are not anxious to go building and owning hotels as government, I think there is an ideological consensus in your countries and then in mine that government is not very good in business, leave business for business people, if we even do get involved it will be for purposes of showing or presenting a model, presenting an example of how a particular hotel in a particular area that is tourism defined ought to be run. But our more natural approach will be ensure that the quality of services in all the hotels are up to standard , after all it is our business to register them , so we will definitely wave the stick of registration more forcefully before the face of the proprietor of hotels all over the country as we observe failures of standards we are looking at things like when you come into the hotels how are you received what is the quality of the rooms there, the security , the telecommunications and all that, we want to look into all that we don’t want proprietors to collect money from people and that money will not be justified in terms of services, still linking it up with the share of the hotel because the hotel is where the visitor ends u. But from the point a visitor arrives the country at the airport, we are interested in how he is received by immigration, we know there have been some improvements since this administration, my brother and colleague the Minister of Aviation is doing a great job so all these things are interlinked. So tourism is linked with what goes on virtually in every other department in this country. So this departmental approach is something we will continue to make use even in the areas of hotel. The ministry of police affairs will have to know that our visitors deserve maximum protection the ministry of power and steel will have to know for each time you have power outage tourism is dropping and so on and so forth. Forbes: What would be your last message to Forbes readers? Chief Maduekwe: Come to Africa if you want to experience black civilization which is the oldest civilization. You haven’t got it if you have been looking for it anywhere else. nigeria is the soul of Africa, and any African experience that does not include nigeria is far, far, far from being complete. That is my message.   Read on   © World INvestment NEws, 1999. This is the electronic edition of the special country report on nigeria published in FORBES Magazine, October 18 th issue. Developed by AgenciaE.Tv