Nigeria: 'Nigerian Carnivals Need More Cultural Environments to Flourish'

Interview By Omolola Itayemi

With each passing year, more and more carnivals are appearing in Nigeria's tourism bouquet. But Yaya Ndu, a tourism advocate believes the country is presenting it in the wrong cultural environment. He speaks with Omolola Itayemi.

Quite a large number of Nigerians might not agree with you that we are presenting our carnivals in the wrong cultural environment? What really is the issue?

The problem with most of the cultural festivals of the people of Cross River, Lagos, Nigeria and Black Africans, which they organise and expect to attract cultural tourists in commercial numbers, is that they are held and organized in environments that are not cultural at all. The festivals are therefore half-cultural and turn out to be a mere mockery. They are like fishes out of the water and have robbed the thunders of their bolts.

We must begin to construct cultural environments to host our cultural festivals and it is only when we do this that they will achieve the sync necessary, even essential to attract the local and foreign tourists that we target in numbers that make economic sense.

In Enugu my home state, for instance, the masquerade festival which the state has made its primary tourist product is usually held at the Nnamdi Azikiwe stadium, which I dare say makes it a miss-fit, and a cynical joke and ensures that the state is denied the full benefits that would have accrued to it if they were held within an African cultural environment. The same goes for the stupid nonsense that passes as Abuja carnival where we annually waste money that could help tourism.

So creativity is missing?

Most of the carnivals organised in Nigeria are blatant insults to our cultural and historical heritages. We are desperate to copy the Caribbean, forgetting that the Black Diaspora who were forced out of had to make do with what was available to them in the foreign and alien environments. It is a matter of the original copying the imitation - What a joke and what disservice to the motherland!

So how can we do it better?

The most important ingredient required for meaningful tourism development is perhaps the most neglected in Nigeria's pursuit or rather pretentions at tourism development. That ingredient is imagination and creativity. Imagination/creativity is essential not only for tourism development but indeed in all aspects of human endeavor. In absolutely every field of human undertaking, creativity imagination is not only useful but necessary, be it in agriculture, in music, games, war, diplomacy, science, you name it. In fact, one can argue that without imagination/creativity, we cannot be truly human.

When we talk about tourism potentials and endowments in Nigeria, we only think of natural endowments. Even the culture we refer to, we fail to realise that they are products of the creativity and imagination of our ancestors. Without imagination and creativity, we cannot harness any tourism potentials. We fail to realize that many of the nations that are making waves in tourism in the modern world are relying mostly on imaginationand creativity and less and less on any natural endowments. Dubai is a place that most travelling Nigerians go to all the time. Are we blind to seeing that the Dubai we know of today is a product of human imagination and creativity?

Destinations across the world are beginning to replace or supplement culture-led development strategies with creative development strategies. In fact, books have been written that critically analyze the impact and effectiveness of creative strategies in tourism development and chart the emergence of creative tourism.

Questions have been asked as to why creativity has become such an important aspect of development strategies and of tourism development in particular. Further questions have also been asked as to why this phenomenon happening now, apparently simultaneously, in so many destinations across the globe?

In a related development, questions are being asked as to the difference between cultural tourism and creative tourism? In Nigeria, we have been speaking for far too long about our tourism potentials and what these potentials could do for us if developed. I make bold to say that it is time to move beyond rhetoric to practicality. Why are we always talking about what we can and shall do in this country? When shall we begin the doing? What are we waiting for?

Can tourism contribute to Nigeria's GDP?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that tourism accounts for up to 10 per cent of global gross domestic product, making it the world's biggest industry. The potential for tourism to contribute significantly to poverty alleviation is considerable.

The WTO's report on Tourism and Poverty Alleviation published for the World Summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg in 2002 drew substantially on the work of the Pro-Poor Tourism Partnership and there are now a range of initiatives taking place on pro-poor tourism.

What is Pro-Poor Tourism?

It must be clarified however that Pro-Poor tourism is not a specific tourism product, rather, it is a humane approach to tourism development and management which ensures or at least strives to ensure, that local poor people are enabled to practically secure economic benefits from tourism in a fair, equitable and sustainable manner.

In this regard, Pro-Poor tourism may improve the livelihoods of poor people in many principal ways such as economic gain through employment generation as well as development of micro enterprises. It can also improve infrastructure which include roads, electricity, water, waste disposal and management, telecommunications, security, e.t.c. It can help facilitate democratic empowerment through engagement of the people in decision making.

The tourism industry needs to operate in environments which are attractive and friendly to tourists. It necessarily demands an educated work force, adequate and functioning health delivery system, good transport, telecommunications, potable water supply and stable power.

When one considers the financial gains that many nations and states in the world are deriving from the tourism, it is a surprise that other communities in search of alternative means of earnings and with comparative advantages in tourism such as Bayelsa State are not looking seriously enough in tourism directions. With 76.8 million visitors in 2004, Florida is the top travel destination in the world.

The tourism industry has an economic impact of $57 billion on Florida economy. Thailand recorded a 31% increase in tourism receipts in 2011 over 2010, according to Ministry of Tourism and Sports figures.

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