Author: The Nation

The Federal Government has been urged to grow the country’s aquaculture sector particularly fish farming because of its enormous benefits to  the tourism sector in the area of culinary experience for  both local and international tourists.

The acclaimed father of Nigerian Tourism, Chief Mike Amachree made this call in a recent chat with journalists. According to the tourism mogul, Nigeria is well placed to grow fish production from the country’s huge rivers, lakes and streams.

Explaining further, Amachree said Nigeria consists of both upland and riverine communities. The upland communities produce beef while the riverine communities produce fish.

He noted that with the abundant rivers in the South-South, South West and parts of the North, the need for fish production becomes imperative. The tourism guru observed that every part of the country practices animal husbandry while fish farming which is supposed to be the occupation of the riverine communities, is lagging behind.  He also blamed oil drillings and the resultant water pollution as a part of the cause of poor yield in the riverine communities.

Relating it to tourism, the hospitality guru said the culinary experience for most tourists in Nigeria leans toward beef. He said: “Most international and domestic tourists are fed with beef and they sometimes complain of lack of availability of fish meals, and where fish meals are served, they are more expensive due to the fact it is not commonly available like beef.”

He urged the Federal Government to assist fish farmers in the riverine areas of Bayelsa, Rivers, Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Argungu in Kebbi States respectively.

Other riverine areas he mentioned include those in Kaduna State (river), Imo State (Oguta Lake) Ondo State (Okitipupa and Ilaje communities), Enugu (Nike Lake), communities around the River Niger and Benue, and Lagos State (Badagry and Epe).

Amachree also used the opportunity to call on government to help stimulate activities within the tourism industry by offering industry practitioners financial palliatives to restart their business after the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to him, without tourism movement, there will be nothing like industrialisation as business men and entrepreneurs have to travel and visit a place before seeing business opportunities to invest.

By Franca Ochigbo, Abuja

Free trade zones are economic drivers wherever they exist. That’s the submissions made by some experts who have been following trends within the development.

Periods gone by when nations’ development indices, growth and viability were measured based on solid infrastructure. The parameters shifted slightly to include income capital per head powered by both National Domestic Product (NDP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) respectively. These economic trajectories are like rockets as they propel seamlessly without special consideration for nations that lag behind.

Not done, the trajectories again, leapfrogged from just considerations of infrastructure, national domestic product and gross domestic product of countries to include nations’ External Reserves (ERs) and Human Capacity Resource (HCR). Judging then from the above, it is no gainsaying that our country has continued to grapple with the challenges of meeting these global economic expectations

Credit must, however, be given to the United Nations and other development agencies that have and continued to extend plethora of economic interventions to the developing economies, albeit with minimal impressions due to the herculean nature of these deficits.

Beyond just setting up socio-politico cum economic goals, development can only happen when result-oriented development concepts evolved, are understood and can be applied within the content of specific conceptualisation and public acceptability. The Free Trade Zones Scheme is therefore, a good example of a global development model with capacity to propel industrialisation in developing economies.

In the light of this, developing nations like China, Brazil, Malaysia, Taipei, United Arab Emirate (UAE), Dubai to be specific, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and host of others have long found economic respites in zone operation.

No doubt, the free trade zone concept remains a wonderful global economic concept that promotes foreign direct investment (FDI), local direct investment (LDI), manufacturing and production, employment, revenues, infrastructural transfer with industrialisation as its ultimate end product. It is indeed a one-stop-shop business ecosystem where operators and investors are exempted from taxes, levies and duties within the zone to enhance export.

Nigeria has never been found wanting in policy development, conceptualization or adoption. The constraint has always been with clear lack of political-will to religiously implement such a policy. The country like its peers mentioned above signed off to free trade zone concept in 1992 when the Nigeria Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) was established by an Act of parliament to oversee the scheme.

Respite, however, came when President Muhammadu Buhari returned from an on-the- spot tour of the scheme in China in 2016. The Chinese Government had during the period of the country’s ‘isolation’ used the zone concept to develop its infrastructure, revamped the economy to a competitive level that today stands as an envy of the world.

President Buhari had to quickly re-evaluate NEPZA and its workforce with the bid to strengthening it in order to replicate the China’s model of free trade zone.

Like a servant who understands the mind of his master, Prof. Adesoji Adesugba, himself, a renowned International Investment Promoter, has been brought into the saddle by the president as Managing Director/CEO of NEPZA to fast track all processes that could facilitate the success of the scheme.

As a measure of commitment to the success of the scheme and beyond improving on the budgetary allocation for NEPZA, the president went further to approve six Special Economic Zones (SEZs) across the six geo-political zones of the country. These zones when fully developed would alter the country’s present development obscurity.

Prof. Adesugba upon assumption of duty on July 1, 2020 reeled out five focus areas which included medical/pharmaceutical, technology, agriculture, mining and tourism. The indefatigable managing director has neatly intertwined these abovementioned areas to power these approved six special economic zones made by the president.

Already, tangible steps have been taken to commence the development of three of the approved special zones for the year billed to be sighted in Lagos, Kwara and Katsina States respectively. The ones for Ebonyi, Benue and Sokoto would constitute the second phase of implementation.

Furtherance to this, the Authority took delivery of the Certificate of Occupancy for 500 hectares for the Medical Special Economic Zone and 276 hectares for Agro-allied Special Economic Zone respectively March 10 in Ilorin.

The NEPZA boss had described Kwara state as a charming investment destination while making his remark at the occasion.

Adesugba had hinged his remark on what he called: “ the glaring improvement on infrastructure in the state by Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq,’’ which according to him has increased the value of the state as a “magnetic“ investment destination.

Abdulrasaq explained that free trade zone created unique opportunities globally, adding that Kwara would fully key into the scheme to stimulate wealth.

While the Lekki axis of Lagos would harbour the Medical Special Economic Zone, the Katsina Special Economic would be sighted in Funtau as a Fabric zone. Plans are also underway for the Funtau SEZ to warehouse a Medical SEZ and other allied industries.

 

Ferguson Uzomah is the Chief Executive Officer/Commodore of the Jabi Boat Club in Abuja, a recreation hub for residents and tourists. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf, he speaks on the untapped goldmine which water recreation offers. Excerpts:

Foray in the industry

I’ve lived in Abuja almost 25 years since my youth service.  After my first degree in Project management at the University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), and second degree in Finance, I’ve spent 18 years in the banking industry and in 2011 set up a project management consultancy firm called QPMC Consultants. I later branched out to face tourism because a greater part of my early life was full of adventure and local travels. There’s no part of the north, south, west or east that I don’t have an idea of. First of all I grew up in Lagos so the water, beach life started from there. Leisure I feel is a way to balance life. You must have time to relax. And so this gave me an idea of setting up the Jabi Boat club. In the last four years it has done well, we have surpassed what we targeted to achieve over the years and there’s a lot  more things that the country as a whole in terms of tourism potentials has to offer particularly in the water areas  in the south.

Unfortunately, the north doesn’t have so much and I guess taking off our business ideas from Abuja is a good decision. We want to be first in wherever we find ourselves and want to be driven by amazing locations to endear people to come. It’s one thing to have a beautiful location, but its better when you have it with wonderful experience. We have been able to achieve that at the Jabi Boat Club and we believe that there are more locations untapped.

Fired to expand the shore of Nigeria, Asaba, Delta State is our next location, and we’ve signed with the government for about 15 years. It’s an experience, even better than what we have here in Abuja. The location which is a river-Niger water front is more ideal and best suited for the project.  You can view he river Niger bridge right from our location in Asaba. Government is more involved in terms of providing infrastructure and partnership. And we believe that Nigeria has a population that is choked with young, vibrant people with energy and great thinkers and innovators.  We believe that those opportunities are what we are going to tap into. We believe that tourism is yet untapped. A lot of collaboration needs to really happen between government, investors and the private sector.

Making boat business a viable venture

There was no marine life in the north up until we set up the Jabi Boat Club with Jet Ski’s, Kayaki’s. Those are things you see in in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Calabar, and Warri. Even though the lake is artificial and a small one, you can enjoy yourself without travelling out of the state to enjoy yourself.  Abuja people embraced it. As a matter of fact we have guests who come from out of town. To have weekend on a boat cruise, jet ski and kayaking. When we started we didn’t expect the rush, but after a while, those who thought boating was expensive, decided to have a one-off experience and then enjoy our delicious cuisine made available for people. But right now, it’s in the increase, the expectations are there, whilst the numbers are on the rise. We are proud to say that this is the first of its kind in the whole of northern Nigeria.

Interesting changes in the marina business in the last four years

I wouldn’t want to compare the marine life here to what you see in Lagos. It’s like comparing a swimming pool to a river. You can’t compare because the lake is in the city centre. It’s growing but a lot need to be done in protecting the environment. The lake is not taken care of. We spend more than a quarter of our revenue to maintain the good ecosystem. The government needs to show some presence in terms of maintenance. The UNDP, Ministry of environment all need to come to our aid. The Jabi Lake is small but needs attention. I am positive that innovation time, government will bring in possible investors to create healthy balance and competition.

How the pandemic is impacting on the business

Business is better post- Covid. With restrictions being lifted, we’re gradually started picking. When economy opened we had to come up with price-sensitive products. Patronage has been on the rise even without having to stage musical events or bring in Nigerian artistes with international reputation. Our publicity was on the rise and appreciating our location, but when Covid-19 came, we had to stop. We hope that one day we’ll resume. We’ve had to host Femi Kuti, Falz, Tuface Idibia,Duncan Mighty, Mayorkun and Teni. It can only get better.

Current trends of the boating industry in Nigeria

Boating is an expensive venture. To do a jet ski for thirty minutes for 20,000 is cheap. And that’s why we have said to ourselves, we might not make money from our boating section, but we can make up from the other products that we offer. Boating is new in this environment.  You can derive more leisure and pleasure from boating in Calabar, Delta region, Port Harcourt, Lagos because you can go into the high sea, lagoon, but fir here I don’t see any future significant growth unless the government gets involved in tournaments that can attract the whole world in areas like Jet Skying, Boating, rowing, canoeing. The lake is big enough to entertain any of the tournaments. And with that we can invite bating associations across the country. The opportunities are there as much as there are in Lagos, its just sitting to put heads together and come up with the right product for the right event.

How to achieve the untapped tourism potential in Nigeria

The government understands but at the same time, the same government is not doing much to get ready for business. Look at Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa and Seychelles-these are smaller countries getting it right. A lot of factors affect us here.  I grew up in Lagos knowing that we made two road trips in a year. I looked forward to these roads trips during Easter and Christmas when my father would drive us to the village and we would spend a week or two. Now, no one would want to go on a road trip for a holiday when bandits are everywhere. Security is a major issue and downfall of tourism. There is no safe place. These are things the government needs to take care of for certain industries to thrive.

The role of the government and the private sector in the scheme of things

Doing business in this clime is not for the faint heart, government in its wisdom has continued to support. But what is the impact of the support in population of over 200 million. If they need to create an impact, then the support must be huge. My plea is that government should support more. We are hoping that Asaba would be funded by one of the interventions of government. We are hoping that the international bodies are able to support us through funding, in improving environmental sustainability. The value chain in the tourism sector is amazing, but government needs to do more especially in the areas of funding and cheaper interest rates. Government needs to develop products and tourism-specific funding and interventions.