Restore tourism ministry’s standalone status, Ojo-Lanre urges Tinubu

Wale Ojo-Lanre, a tourism development expert, has urged President Bola Tinubu to restore the standalone status of Nigeria’s Ministry of Tourism.

Ojo-Lanre, in a letter made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Lagos, warned that the tourism sector’s current structure is hindering its ability to drive economic growth.

Ojo-Lanre, who is also the Director-General of Ekiti State Bureau of Tourism Development, stated that Nigeria’s tourism potential remained untapped, not due to a shortage of assets, but rather due to structural issues, lack of political will, and unclear institutional frameworks.

“I come before you not as a critic, not as a partisan and not as a spectator.

“But as a Nigerian who has spent his entire professional life studying, documenting, advocating and believing in the unrealised promise of this country’s tourism economy,” he wrote.

According to Ojo-Lanre, tourism has been wrongly treated as an appendage of arts and culture, rather than as a full economic system for decades.

He noted that tourism was not limited to a festival, neither a dance troupe nor a pageantry.

He emphasised that the sector interfaced directly with other sectors including aviation, transport, security, environment, infrastructure, health, trade and international mobility.

He said no country had successfully developed tourism by burying it inside a super-ministry overwhelmed by unrelated mandates.

He recalled that President Tinubu’s decision to create a standalone Ministry of Tourism in 2023 marked a historic correction and briefly restored momentum to the sector.

“For the first time, tourism had a seat at the cabinet table.

“For the first time, it had visibility, focus, and direction,” he said.

He noted that within 14 months, stakeholder confidence improved and Nigeria returned to global tourism conversations.

He, however, described the subsequent merger of tourism into the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy as a setback.

“From that moment, progress stalled; visibility faded; authority diluted. Tourism once again became an afterthought,” he said.

Ojo-Lanre noted that the merger overlooked the fact that arts and culture contribute only about 20 per cent to the tourism value chain, with the remaining 80 per cent relying on technical planning, security coordination, and infrastructure development.

Citing the absence of a national waterfall development programme in spite of over 48 documented waterfalls, he highlighted the country’s failure to convert its natural and cultural assets into economic value.

He further highlighted the lack of a coastal tourism master plan despite more than 750 kilometres of Atlantic coastline.

Ojo-Lanre also lamented the absence of a sports tourism strategy, a cruise tourism framework and a structured religious tourism policy, in spite of Nigeria hosting millions of pilgrims annually.

“These are not failures of imagination. They are failures of institutional focus,” he said.

He also pointed to what he described as fiscal incoherence, noting that over N10 billion was allocated in the current budget to a tourism ministry that no longer existed as a standalone institution.

“Tourism funds are now circulating within a bureaucracy already overwhelmed with arts, culture, creative economy and curative heritage responsibilities.

“This exposes policy incoherence and diluted accountability,” he said.

Comparing Nigeria to countries such as Kenya, Morocco, Rwanda, Egypt and South Africa, Ojo-Lanre said Nigeria’s underperformance in tourism was structural, not accidental.

“Tourism in Nigeria is not weak; it is overwhelmed; it is shackled. It is suffocating under a structure that does not fit its economic nature,” he said.

Ojo-Lanre therefore urged the President to act decisively.

“Lift tourism out of the cage. Restore its standalone ministry. Give it voice, authority, and focus.

“Do not let tourism remain a poor orphan— rich in assets, poor in attention, and absent from national development logic,” he pleaded.

He said history would remember President Tinubu not only for economic reforms, but as the leader who finally allowed Nigeria’s tourism destiny breathe.