With captains of Nigeria’s tourism industry preparing for the 2024 edition of Meetings Africa, a look at the rearview mirror is instructive. Much remains undone, not least the return of artifacts looted by Europe to the country.

A dozen heritage sites from Kwiambana (Ningi) to Benin Iya/Sungbo’s Eredo, have stuck on UNESCO’s tentative list for years. Now that Team Tinubu is in charge, here is a question: How far is government in completing these tasks and bolstering tourism? We shouldn’t forget the vexing matter of security.

For its part, the tourism sector witnessed the battle of the egos at play at WTM London. But, like firefighters, unfazed by palace tantrums, members of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies and West Africa Tourism Organisation and other exhibitors from the region ensured that the nation participated at the 2023 WTM – an event of 44,000 attendees, including 50 government ministers.

The event generated £2.8 billion (₦3.4 trillion) in contracts. For context, Nigeria’s tourism industry generates ₦7.2 trillion per year. Hosted by London’s River Thames, “the world’s most influential travel & tourism event” has, curiously, overrepresentation of Global North speakers. Why?

With WTM done and dusted, the next big thing is Meetings Africa in Johannesburg’s Sandton from 26th-28th February. It calls itself the continent’s “premier trade show” in its category. Among its attendees will be Nigerian industry bosses and their colleagues from the host nation. Add to the list a phalanx of global players and participants from Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Uganda, Zambia and 20-plus other African nations. Intra-continental trade is set for a bounce.

Closer home, although Nigeria did not have a tourism minister until six months ago, it managed in 2022 to host the UN World Tourism Organisation’s first Global Conference on Linking Tourism, Culture and Creative Industries. That gathering was cited by the presidency among the highlights of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure. Tourism-culture mutualism comes alive in filmmaking, for one. Shemu Joyah, from the Malawian film industry, recalls how Out of Africa spurred tourist traffic in the 1980s.

“That film showcased Africa’s beauty. For years it attracted many filmmakers, they came to Kenya in numbers. Some of them built partnerships, others brought in equipment, others groomed young talent,” he told the author during last year’s Durban International Film Festival. Joyah’s film career began when he and his comrades looked to Nollywood for tips. Fifteen years later, Joyah is an accomplished scriptwriter with projects like Seasons of a Life and who has unearthed Malawi’s talents. Credit for these is due to

Now that the Ministry of Tourism and that of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy – under the baton of Hannatu Musawa – complete the picture, what’s to stop the nation from hosting even more global meetings this year? The UNWTO’s 2024 calendar of gatherings is packed. Think gastronomy tourism and sports tourism, notably the Football Tourism Forum. The UNWTO and other advocates of inclusivity must take a fair amount of their events to Global South hosts like Lagos, Abuja and many other sites on the continent and beyond.

Added to many other strengths, West Africa is a creative hub. The dividend of big events is eclectic: the transfer of skills, youth training and infrastructure development. Like good films and books, global gatherings generate PR mileage for host nations, and sustain and create jobs: caterers, drivers, hotel porters, technicians, translators, entertainers. Such events also boost national GDPs.

WTM and Meetings Africa are examples. The latter’s 2023 edition, which gathered 3,000 delegates and sustained 750 jobs, injected a direct ZAR133.9 million (₦6.9 billion) into the South African economy. The economy yielded a total of ZAR388.5 million (₦20 billion) in direct and indirect contributions. Fora like that offer invaluable networking opportunities.

Ask Tourism Minister Lola Ade-John and her comrade, Ms Musawa. Fresh from Davos, the latter is facing urgencies like the return of all cultural objects stolen by colonists, and facilitating the inscription of heritage sites located in Nigeria. Broadly, of the 1,199 UNESCO-declared World Heritage Sites, a mere two are in Nigeria to Ethiopia’s 11 (the country with the highest number in Africa). France has north of 50 World Heritage Sites versus 35 for West Africa. The skewed distribution raises questions about UNESCO’s processes. The fact that Nigeria and her immediate neighbours have more than 50 sites on UNESCO’s tentative list – some of which have been there for almost 30 years.

While on this, the tourism-culture family is dissimilar to its peers, as it is of interest to locals and foreigners alike. Thus the national language might not be sufficient to deliver the goods. Here’s an example: How good is an Ivorian website to most Nigerians for whom French is a foreign language? Further, since successful tourist markets are driven by regional clientele, Nigeria’s sector ought to embrace French to open up to more West and Central Africans.

So, how far has Nigeria come in the first semester of a fully-fledged ministries of tourism and that of arts and culture? First, Ms Ade-John, a corporate grandee, is well-placed as the nation’s chief marketing officer, second to President Bola Tinubu. To equate this milestone with the end of the first semester of a four-year term is too simplistic. The context is too complex. For one, the national icy cold shower, or removal of oil subsidies, has brought an ensuing economic mess. The domestic market is squeezed on all fronts. If Detty December could speak! Now nearing 30 per cent, inflation is at debilitating levels last seen in the Sani Abacha years. Without urgent effective interventions, Tinubu might just be remembered for sending the nation to the doldrums, notably on the 25th anniversary of uninterrupted civilian rule.

“Our government remains committed to broad-based and shared economic prosperity,” Tinubu told the joint session of the National Assembly in November. “We expect the economy to grow by a minimum of 3.76 per cent, above the forecasted world average. Inflation is expected to moderate to 21.4 per cent in 2024.”

Regardless of Ms Ade-John’s perfect résumé, and independent of the maelstrom, founding a tourism ministry and pushing the nation’s sector higher was bound to be hard. For one, the global industry is still trying to reverse the effect of US$2.6-trillion wiped by COVID-19. So, to blame people in the ministry for a slow pace is unfair. The team is napping though for taking this long to bring to life a cutting-edge tourism website, since consumers of tourism are online. It is de rigueur for tourism ministries to have dedicated websites to meet travelers halfway: tourism starts online for many these days.

While on this, the tourism-culture family is dissimilar to its peers, as it is of interest to locals and foreigners alike. Thus the national language might not be sufficient to deliver the goods. Here’s an example: How good is an Ivorian website to most Nigerians for whom French is a foreign language? Further, since successful tourist markets are driven by regional clientele, Nigeria’s sector ought to embrace French to open up to more West and Central Africans. Thailand, the most visited destination in Asia, offers exciting examples in terms of regional clientele and carving a niche.

In fact, Thailand, a hot favourite for medical travel, hosts more health tourists a year than Nigeria welcomes all tourists per annum. That nation’s health tourism sector is now pegged at a huge US$5.68 billion. Nigeria, a melting point of arts, culture and creative industries, has barely traded on such strengths or capitalised on its geographic location.

West Africa’s linguistic mix motivates for a Nigeria with some French, notably in the ranks of culture, hospitality and for migrations personnel. Shrugging the entitlement mentality endemic in English-speaking nations is not a political statement but a route to a larger circle. Figures from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) expose Nigeria’s weak points: the industry accounts for 3.9 per cent of the GDP (lagging behind the global average). Arrivals are at two million a year, representing a 0.2 per cent share of the global market. Thailand boasts of 4 per cent. Lifting Nigeria-bound traffic to five million by 2027 is within reach but requires consistent moves like effective marketing to business tourists and holidaymakers – not forgetting a website (in at least two languages), improved air connectivity, and a friendlier visa regime.

If captains of tourism and arts and culture were to emulate the Super Eagles, today’s social observers might – in contrast to their predecessors who bore witness to government’s economic sabotage – reflect on the 2020s positively. Patriotism, backed by slog, brings the goods. Ms Ade-John and her team, with the support of Tinubu, ought to accelerate now.

The WTTC forecasts global arrivals at 1.8 billion by 2030 (from 1.4 billion, 2018). For Nigeria to corner 1 per cent, in the league of Egypt, would be so sweet. As sweet as when, in the 1990s, the Super Eagles turned these climes into a powerhouse. Cue Daniel Amokachi, Emmanuel Amonike, Jay Jay Okocha, Sunday Oliseh, Samson Siasia, Rasheed Yekini, Taribo West and their peers, too many to list, put the national flag first. So sweet was their sweat that East Africans – who also hail Abedi Pele Ayew, Mamadou Diallo, Doctor Khumalo, Roger Milla and a legion of others – still relish that era. Likewise, if Team Nigeria were to put Destination Nigeria first, many tourists will keep coming back for more and spread the word. This is the place to be: Great sights, good food, and a lot more. There is nothing wrong with some fanfare, a song and a dance about this country’s attractions at events like Meetings Africa and

One of the repeat visitors, and she recalls her visits with glee is Multichoice boss, Yolisa Phahle, a London-bred broadcaster and former member of Soul II Soul. In an interview with Destiny, she spoke highly of the spirit of Nigeria, adding that nothing beat “a night out on the town in either Johannesburg or Lagos”. Now, Time Out has observed that “there’s something for everyone in Lagos”, ranking the hip and creative hub among the 50 best cities in the world for 2024.

To wrap, let’s throw back to throw forward. Benin Bronzes were, like the buffalo soldiers, stolen from Africa. Some of them were sent to America (Abya Yala in precolonial times). Those objects link the now with time immemorial. Far from being figuratively chained, they deserve dignified treatment. History recalls with shame how, in the Margaret Thatcher years in the United Kingdom, scions of the Kingdom of Benin paid a fortune to Sotheby’s to reclaim their own heritage, looted by Britain amid its era of massacres. Sotheby’s should have kept away from the travesty.

In recent years, the British Museum offered to “loan back stolen goods”: a spaghetti junction of racial prejudice and theft with scorn. That site reportedly houses one the largest collections of African cultural pieces, along with Berlin’s Ethnologisches Museum and Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika (Brussels). Last week brought us another spaghetti junction of shame: Britain is loaning Ghana pieces of cultural objects stolen from Ghana. Many other overseas sites hoard loots. With the repatriation debate on hold, Africans keep traveling to Berlin, Harvard, London and Washington DC to sample their inheritance, pumping tourism forex abroad. Don’t forget Austria’s Weltmuseum Wien, Musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac in Paris and others.

It was Ken Saro-Wiwa who moaned Nigeria for being the only oil-rich country that “had succeeded in doing absolutely nothing with (black gold).” If captains of tourism and arts and culture were to emulate the Super Eagles, today’s social observers might – in contrast to their predecessors who bore witness to government’s economic sabotage – reflect on the 2020s positively. Patriotism, backed by slog, brings the goods. Ms Ade-John and her team, with the support of Tinubu, ought to accelerate now.