The Executive Secretary/CEO, National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Otunba Biodun Ajiboye has disclosed that if Nigeria can properly package and enhance its festivals and tourism potentials, it can serve as a good foreign exchange for the country that will help to boost its economy.
Otunba who made this known while speaking as a guest on the programme “TVC Breakfast Saturday” on the topic: “Focus on Promotion of the Nation’s Cultural Heritage”, said what Nigeria needs in its economic development is the ability to earn foreign exchange.
According to him, the nation is currently suffering from strangulating dollar exchange rates because it is not exporting nor earning dollars, yet there are great potentials in the nation’s tourism sector that can serve as one of the biggest ways to revive its economy.
Further speaking on ways to revival Nigeria’s cultural festivals, Otunba said Nigeria must be ready to sell her cultural festivals o the outside world. His words “We are right now on the saddle to ensure that tourism plays a key role in our economic equation. We must make use of our potentials as a country and bring them back to the table for the world to appreciate us positively and not only for negative vices but the good ones too.
“What we have in this country, the world is looking out for it. They are ready to pay anything to come to Nigeria to see what the potency of our culture is but we are down playing it. The time is now ripe for us to play it up properly”.
“One of our mandate in NICO is to sell the image of Nigeria via our culture to the world and the Institute is working closely with the Ministry of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy towards establishing outposts in different countries to tell the world how potent and original the Nigerian culture and values are for them to come and have a feel of it”.
“Once we have presidential approval, we are going to launch to the world, the essence and goodness of the potentials inherent in our culture because Nigeria is a very culturally rich country and there is need to bring it out towards enhancing our tourism potentials that will earn good foreign exchange for the country and boost the economy”, he said.
Caleb Nor
Media Asst.-ES
NICO, Abuja
