The Aare Ona-Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Gani Adams, on Friday called on the federal and state governments in Nigeria to wake up to the realities of new revenue generation in foreign currencies by upgrading the existing tourist attraction centres in each of the 36 states of the country.
With particular reference to the call for the diversification of the economy from solely relying on oil and other solid minerals, Adams emphatically declared that leadership in governments of Nigeria would be doing the country proud to earn foreign currencies if they could muster the courage to revitalise the tourism sector in the country.
Adams made the call while speaking in an interview with journalists on Friday during the 2025 annual celebration of Olumo Festival held in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
He emphasised that Tourism, “if developed and well-packaged”, has the capability of attracting foreign investors in a way that would change the narrative of the country’s unemployment status to creating job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youths and prevent them from engaging in social vices that have earned Nigeria a bad image in the comity of nations.
He cited instances of other developed nations like the United States of America and Thailand that have, over the years, been raking in several millions of foreign countries to augment their revenue generation base.
According to Adams, Nigeria has been losing substantial revenue in terms of foreign currencies due to the nonchalant attitudes and lip-service of the successive governments in the country towards revitalising the tourism sector.
“One of the problems we are having now is insecurity; if governments can provide the enabling environment through security and re-orientate our youths about various activities, Nigeria has very big potentials in tourism to create wealth.
“Thailand has 40 million tourists every year and statistics also show that Britain generates nothing less than 35 million tourists every year. We have to understand that this is the period when people are moving from mineral resources to tourism for revenue generation,” he said.
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