Commissioner for Tourism and Diaspora, Sally Mbanefo is upbeat that the activities of her Ministry have been highly acknowledged by our people in the diaspora which has given the State government the needed impetus to provide more infrastructural developments to encourage the all-important Ministry. Needless to say that the Ministry has been receiving lots of positive responses and we are working even hard to sustain and surpass expectations.
According to her, it is instructive to note that Anambra State had been at Akwaaba Fourteenth edition 2018 and we have done to Anambra tourism. It is dripping and here for all to see practically. The government has invested much in the sector.
“Yeah we have been able to network, we came in to see things by ourselves because learning is a continuous process the very first day we have been networking with travel agencies and it has been very, very fruitful, you don’t talk about tourism setting in the comfort of your homes you need to move around this is a very good forum, I think the highest market for tourism in the country”, she restated.
Mbanefo added that going forward for Anambra State the Ministry has come to stay due to its potentials and revenue earners and has recorded visible achievements so far. Mbanefo stressed that the best is yet to come. The most important thing is to lay the solid foundation on the ground then the results would be manifesting by itself. It is the kind of outfit we are building and sooner than later we will be there, she further informed.
The Commissioner insists that if she said the Ministry has recorded achievements that will be an understatement because she is a highflying goal getter and standard setter in short, I’m a workaholic of the first order for instance, within the five months she has been able to do a lot of work in the tourist site such like Ogbunike Cable Festival the states of being work done, the stress done the cable are being work done, structure has been set on, housing, conveniences and change roads these are just under her and Ogbunike gave his bills to work on as am speaking right now and a lot of them she was the person that package it and you can see for the first time Anambra is having a stand-in Akwaaba for it is not an easy thing but for my doggedness and zeal to remolding things thereby justifying the confidence of the Governor and the people of the State.
She pointed out that one of the problems of tourism in Nigeria is democratic and change of government in Nigeria, lack of will and other contributing forces anybody that comes want to start up a new thing, you don’t reap were you don’t sow so my advice is that government should invest in tourism and other coming government should continue from were they stopped, you don’t just start up another project leaving the other ones uncompleted that is the problem in Nigeria.
Tourism at the money holding industries if you need to put in some money, structure it out, don’t just stay and talk about tourism being out where you want to put in your little investment in tourism sector.
One word for Ikechi who is a setup organizer of those programs. The guy is a high flyer, I respect him and the wife too. In fact, their doggedness is why we are here because they continue calling and telling you the benefit, hold from being it Akwaaba, with that, with a little amount of pressure and them reminding you coming from the public sector it helps us to be here. I will rather say the door of workaholic knows where they are going and taking Nigeria tourism beyond the short of the countries.
Housing from the fourteenth edition you start preparing for the fifteenth like my state we will start preparing for the fifteenth edition of our own festival coming up next year knowing where we didn’t get it right.
Source: Chinyere Ogidi
Source: wakaaboutafrica.com