By Wale Ojo-Lanre Esq.

Please, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR , kindly rescue
this entity from death.

Please, Nigerians , where are you?

Where are the Senators of the Federal Republic?
Where are the Honourable Members of the House of Representatives?
Where are the distinguished Nigerians who believe in the future of this country?

I humbly call on you all to join me in appealing, begging and supplicating President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to please save this entity from imminent death.

Yes , this entity is gasping for breath.

And today, there is only one man in Nigeria with the constitutional authority and political power to save it.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

This is why I speak loudly today.

This is why I refuse to remain silent.

Because sometimes silence becomes complicity in the death of something precious.

My desperation to cry out today did not begin today.

In fact, in 2023, when President Tinubu had just emerged as President-elect, I wrote a long and passionate memo urging him to save the soul of this same entity.

At that time, the article was not written in panic.

It was written in hope.

Hope that a new administration would recognise the enormous economic power sleeping inside this entity.

Hope that the incoming government would awaken it and transform it into a pillar of Nigeria’s economic diversification.

But today, three years later, that hope has gradually transformed into concern.

And concern is now dangerously approaching alarm.
And daily the soul of the entity is gasping for breath …
And if President Tinubu does not rush to the rescue , that would be the end .

So permit me therefore to revisit that 2023 memo not as an act of criticism, but as an act of patriotic reminder.

Because the entity I spoke about then is still here today.

Still rich.

Still powerful.

Still full of promise.

But sadly…

Still neglected.

Mr President, Nigeria’s tourism sector today is quietly weeping , not because it lacks beauty, not because it lacks attractions, not because it lacks global appeal , but because it lacks sustained political will, institutional protection and policy continuity.

Tourism should be roaring like a lion in Africa’s economic savannah.

Instead, it limps like an orphan denied inheritance.

Tourism is not a decorative appendage to the economy. It is a vast economic ecosystem linking aviation, hospitality, culture, transportation, agriculture, entertainment, trade, security, environment and digital services into one powerful value chain.

When tourism breathes, many sectors breathe.

When tourism stagnates, entire economic ecosystems suffocate.

Mr President, Nigeria’s economic story remains dangerously tied to crude oil , a resource whose global relevance is gradually shrinking in the face of renewable energy transitions and volatile market forces.

Every year we build budgets around oil price projections.

Every year global events remind us that oil is not a stable economic foundation.

Yet within this same Nigeria lies an industry capable of generating billions of dollars annually, creating millions of jobs and stimulating local economies from villages to megacities.

That industry is tourism.

And sadly, it remains Nigeria’s most neglected economic opportunity.

Ironically, countries that do not possess even one-tenth of Nigeria’s tourism resources have built strong tourism economies.

Malaysia, once heavily dependent on oil like Nigeria, deliberately invested in tourism after the oil glut of the 1980s.

Ghana, our neighbour, has leveraged heritage tourism and diaspora engagement to attract global attention and billions of dollars in tourism receipts.

Jordan, a country without oil wealth, transformed just a handful of natural and historical attractions into a global tourism magnet.

But Nigeria — a nation blessed with extraordinary natural and cultural assets , continues to crawl where it should be sprinting.

Mr President, Nigeria is a tourism continent disguised as a country.

We possess over 789 kilometres of coastline, more than 48 waterfalls, over 15 National Parks, dozens of forest reserves, heritage corridors, sacred groves, cultural festivals, warm springs, mountain plateaus and ancient cities.

From Ikogosi Warm Springs to Arinta Waterfalls, from Zuma Rock to Yankari Game Reserve, from the temperate majesty of Obudu Mountain Resort to the mystical waters of Ozimini Blue River, Nigeria overflows with tourism wonders.

Yet these assets remain largely underdeveloped.

The tragedy is not that Nigeria lacks tourism potential.

The tragedy is that Nigeria has never truly decided to develop tourism.

There was a time we almost got it right.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo understood tourism’s economic power. His administration created the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and established several institutions to strengthen the sector.

More importantly, he inaugurated the Presidential Council on Tourism and Culture, personally chairing it to ensure tourism received top-level government attention.

But after that era, the momentum faded.

Institutions weakened.
Policies stalled.
Budgets shrank.
Tourism slipped quietly into the background of national economic planning.

Mr President, hope briefly resurfaced in August 2023 when your administration established a standalone Federal Ministry of Tourism.

For the first time in decades, tourism had an independent cabinet voice.

Stakeholders celebrated.

The sector felt a pulse again.

But that hope was short-lived.

In October 2024, the ministry was dissolved and merged into the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy.

Tourism returned to departmental status.

And the old problem returned , subordination, dilution and institutional fragility.

But a structural merger is only one part of the crisis.

The deeper problem is financial starvation.

Even the enlarged Ministry itself operates under severe funding constraints.

Meagre budgets.

Irregular releases.

Too many sectors under one administrative roof.

Tourism now competes with arts, culture, heritage, museums and creative industries for the same thin resources.

Focus becomes diluted.

Implementation becomes weak.

Even the parastatals are quietly weeping.

Indeed, a sector that earns trillions globally cannot be run on a budget that struggles to print brochures.

Mr President, if Nigeria is serious about economic diversification, tourism must be given structural protection and executive attention.

The sleeping oil well called tourism must be awakened.

Oil wells may dry.

Tourism wells do not.

Jagaban Sir, kindly wake it up.

Nigeria will thank you.

As the Yoruba wisely say, it is a tragedy when the son of a butcher is forced to chew bones like a hungry dog.

Nigeria owns a vast tourism feast, yet we behave like spectators at our own banquet.

The question therefore is simple:

Will Nigeria continue drilling only beneath the ground, or will it finally begin to drill the wealth that stands beautifully above it?

Wale Ojo-Lanre Esq.
Director-General
Ekiti State Bureau of Tourism Development
Tourism Advocate