Perched in the lush hills of Ekiti State, Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort is fast emerging as Nigeria’s leading beacon of tourism transformation — a sentiment powerfully echoed by the Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism, and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, during her recent tour of the iconic site. Speaking after commissioning the resort’s new Presidential Villa, Musawa described the destination as “absolutely magical” and a model of global-standard tourism development that Nigeria must replicate nationwide. With its unique confluence of warm and cold springs, high-end facilities, and deep-rooted cultural appeal, Ikogosi is not just a tourist site — it is the template for Nigeria’s Destination 2030 agenda and a centerpiece in the federal government’s push for economic diversification through culture and tourism.
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You have just had a tour of the Ikogosi Warm Springs Resorts and also the commissioning of the Presidential Villa, what is your impression of this new addition to the offering of the Kogosi?
Well, my impression is my mind is completely blown away. I have heard of Ikogosi and I have heard of the magical, mythical sort of feel and experience that you have in Ikogosi, but I think as much as anyone tries to tell you, you don’t really have that full experience of what it is here in Ikogosi till you come. You know, I didn’t believe that there was anywhere in Nigeria that had this kind of magic, and that is really the word to encapsulate it, this place is absolutely magic. The new Presidential Suite that we have just commissioned now, I mean, anywhere you go in the world, this is what you are going to find.
And what I have to say is, what I noticed all the way round is the attention to detail that Cavista and all the people have played here to ensure that they have delivered something that is completely of global standard. I mean, this is really the place, when you talk about tourism assets in Nigeria. We all know that Nigeria has so many beautiful tourism assets, but I think what they have done here in Ikogosi is they have completely raised the bar in terms of what Nigeria has to offer. And we really have to key in to ensure that Ikogosi not only is able to be maintained, but is also upscaled and is sustained for the benefits of the whole, not only of Ekiti State, not only of the tourism industry, but Nigeria as a whole.
What is your ministry doing, or what is the master plan for promotion of domestic tourism in Nigeria?
I think the best way to really add onto the template of tourism, and to promote tourism for me, is to focus on domestic tourism. There are so many Nigerians that really want to experience Nigeria from north, south, east, and west, and everywhere you go in Nigeria is something different.
One of the initiatives that my ministry is doing is that it has come up with a Renewed Hope cultural and tourism program that Mr. President, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has asked us to put in every single state. He wants every single state to tell the story of their unique peculiarity through the eyes of culture, through the eyes of tourism, and through the eyes of creativity. So what we have done as a federal government is try to reach out and do a handshake with every single state.
So every single state will tell us what they want us to collaborate on, that will build on that tourism asset. And my hope is that we will now use that as a template to ensure that there is domestic tourism, so every state will have something to build on. And like I said, just to rally on back to the first question that I answered, I think what they have done here in Ikogosi is really a template that can be used all over the country.
What has been done here is something that can be done anywhere in the developed world. So if we can look at this template and look at the attention that they have done, and I must say one of the great things that I have seen that they have done in terms of job creation is to engage the local community. And you know that is very empowering, because when you engage a local community you give them a sense of ownership as to that edifice that you have.
And in terms of a sense of ownership, they will also want to protect it. So the issues of insecurity, you are able to sort of mitigate that in one way or another. But our ministry again is very intentional in working with the private sector.
This is the intention of Mr President, because he wants everything to be sustainable long term. So he has asked every one of us to work with the private sector to ensure that we put up all the right infrastructure. And what we are going to do here in Ikogosi is to continue working with Cavista to see how we can really bring traffic into Ikogosi, so that we can not only maintain it and sustain it, but we can continue to upscale it.
What do you think government can do to ensure that the road to this beautiful resort is good?
We did come in through Akure, but I must tell you, I enjoyed the drive because I had the experience of watching the locality and the different communities. So I personally love that I have to drive a long way to get here. But in order for us to be able to deliver places, destinations, such as Ikogosi as a holistic tourist destination, not only for domestic tourism, but what I hope will be for global tourism as well, is to ensure that we put up that infrastructure.
Now when you talk about infrastructure, access has got to be one of the main discussions. So I have already started discussions with the state government and of course other MDAs, inter-ministerial collaborations, so that we ensure that access to Ikogosi is a lot easier. So when you are coming in from Lagos, you are able to fly direct into Ekiti state, right? And then you are able to drive shorter and more seamlessly.
So again, it’s really about partnership and collaborations and conversations with other MDAs to ensure that everybody pulls his weight to deliver that destination. And this is what I plan to intentionally do with Ikogosi. Nobody has to go out of Nigeria.
If you want to go for a retreat, if you want to experience the beauty of nature, and I think that is what is the magic mystique about Ikogosi. That attention to detail that we have seen has met a sort of rallying point with nature. And that nature, this beauty that you see here, is something that we really want to deliver for domestic tourism, for international tourism.
And quickly, one of the strategies that I had, I think in the past, I had said that we as a ministry wanted to adopt is to sell Nigerian tourism through the eyes of the tourist destinations. So for example, when you are going to Mexico, when you are going to Cancun, you’re going to Cancun, and you are not necessarily going to Mexico. So before we sell Nigeria as a tourist destination, but you must be able to sell to the global community, Ikogosi as a destination in and of itself.
And as a result of that, we are able to boost the traffic. So I want to thank Mr. President because it is because of his prompting and the mandate that he gave me to ensure that I ensure that we deliver these tourist destinations. And Ikogosi is really at the top of my intention in terms of delivering one of those first tourist destinations to the global community.
What is the position of federal government in the next five or ten years, in terms of revenue generation from the sector?
The revenue generation, I feel, is going to be quite a lot because one of the things that Mr. President wants us to do is to use the ministry to number one, have an economic expansion to add to the economic growth of the nation. And with a huge potential in the tourism, creative and cultural sectors, we feel that we can do that.
And he’s also looking to see that we can add job creation to it. So we are working together with Big Win to do a complete deep dive and a proper sort of academic research as to what we really believe the tourism sector can really contribute to the nation by 2030. From the creative economy side, we feel that we can at least contribute $100 billion if all the modalities are put in place and every single sector is able to pull its weight in terms of putting the right framework in place.
And I think we can even get higher numbers with that if we are able to put this structure and the infrastructure, again, I speak of in the tourism sector and these different destinations. So I think by 2027, at least with Ikogosi, you are going to see an upscale because of the partnership that we are having together with Cavista and with the state government and with this Renewed Hope cultural, creative and tourism project that Mr. President has mandated to ensure that we are able to contribute to the growth of the economy through the tourism sector. And lastly, I have to say my hope is we are going to have the National Tourism Summit, possibly to be hosted here with the NESG.
And my hope is to encourage every single government body to do their retreats here. And I think we are going to, as a ministry, be very dogged and intentional in ensuring that we continue to encourage not only the private sector, but just different versions or different sectors in Nigeria, and the government to patronize and to ensure that they also experience the beautiful, warm and cold springs and the magic of Ikogosi.
Can you talk more about Destination 2030?
I am glad that you spoke about Destination 2030 because when I was up at the balcony at the Presidential Villa, I actually thought about Destination 2030. Because if you step onto the balcony and you just look onto the right side, you are going to find an avalanche of beauty, of nature. I mean, it’s absolutely breathtaking. And one of the things that I was saying to my team is the hope of taking images such as what we have seen in Ikogosi and making postcards of it, trying to make merchandise of it.
Destination 2030 is an initiative, one of the core eight initiatives that we have in the Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, where we want to reposition Nigeria in the eyes of the world. So we want to use our cultural, creative and tourism assets, because that is really where the interest is in Nigeria, is that content. And when you talk about that content, our beautiful landscapes, the beaches, just the beauty of nature in Nigeria adds to that content that you speak of in Nigeria.
So we want to use that to change the mindset of people, that is the soft power. That is where our power lies. So we want to use that to change the mindset of the global community as to what Nigeria is.
And part of that story and part of that journey is to use a destination such as Ikogosi as a rallying point to bring people into Nigeria so that they can experience and change their mindset as to who we are as a people. And I want to thank Mr. President, President Bola Tinubu, because of his prompting and his mandate and, you know, the directive that he’s given that we must deliver this to the Nigerian people.
