Over the recently concluded Christmas and New Yeay holiday, many Nigerians visited South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, among other locations, just to spend time with wildlife in the state of nature. As expected, the national airlines of the respective countries made money from tickets sales, while hotels and resorts boomed with bookings and taxis, craft merchants, tour operator and all in the value chain, made money from the Nigerian visitors.
While people are free to make a choice of where to spend their holidays, most of the choices are at the detriment of Nigerian tourist attractions and local destinations, which wallow in ruins with visits few and far between.
Worse hit are the seven national parks across the country, which most Nigerians under 30 do not know exist, while adults tell stories that further scare a few from visiting.
Whatever the case, the sheer size of Nigeria’s national parks is worth seeing and enough to woo investments to develop them to world class standard. With an estimated total conservation area of 22,206.24 square kilometers, which hosts 1,340 species of wildlife, sadly the seven national parks in Nigeria have failed to maximise their tourism potential worth over N10 billion annually revenue from tourists receipts and researches.
Experts say that each of the seven parks (besides the standalone Yankari Games Reserve, now under the management of Bauchi State), can make over N1 billion revenue annually from tourist receipts, if world class infrastructure, improved wildlife population/species and security are in place, as well as, aggressive marketing to woo visitors.
The sad development is worsened by the fact that the parks, which cover about three percent of Nigeria’s total land area, have lost almost 40 percent of their wildlife population to lack of funding, care for the wildlife, failure to introduce new breeds, and especially uncontrolled poaching by locals.
Yet, like most government entities, the Nigerian Parks Services, a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Environment, which administers the National Parks, has not been able to attract private sector participation or even concessionaires, due to policy inconsistency on the part of government, and some public private projects that are winding-up or facing legal contest because of government’s failure to abide by the PPP agreement.
Comparing the number of visitations, quality researches and, especially revenue generated by other national parks across to destinations in Africa, it seems the 22,206.24 square kilometers the eight parks occupy in Nigeria is a waste.
Pointing Nigeria to some successful National Parks across the continent, Martins Olugha, a Calabar Cross River State-based conservationist and destination manager, noted that wildlife still the main source of tourism satisfaction and revenue in Kenya because of how serious all stakeholders, especially government regard tourism in the country.
“During its lifetime, an adult male lion in the Amboseli Game Reserve, Kenya will earn $515,000 in foreign exchange. One lion is worth $7,000 per year in income from tourism and an elephant herd can be valued at $610,000 annually in Kenya. A Safari is such a popular product that has enabled the country to continue recording remarkable growth in the volume of tourists, hence tourism is the second highest contributor to Kenya’s GDP after agriculture”, Olugha explained.
Besides the 16 national parks in Tanzania, the Kilimanjaro National Park alone makes $193, 929, 602 per one calendar year, with $50 as the least about entry fee, while tourists further spend an average of $500 a day in the park.
In the 2014/15 Annual Report of the South African National Parks (SANParks), Fundisile Mketeni
CEO, SANParks, explained that growth in revenue from the park’s tourism business exceeded R1 billion for the first time, despite the on-going international economic recession. “The total number of guests visiting our national parks grew by 6,6 percent from 5, 235, 095 in 2013/14 to 5, 578, 532 in 2014/15, as a result the total revenue from SANParks’ tourism business grew by 10,5 percent to reach the R1,07 billion mark. About 5 346 people are in the direct employ of SANParks with a further 1, 932 people employed by concessionaires in the parks as at March 2015”, Mketeni said.
Citing instance with Yankari Game Reserve, Hassan Yahaya, a tourism teacher and hotel owner, advised the Federal Government to unbundle some of the parks to make them attractive to the private sector. Since taking over Yankari, the Bauchi State Government has done nothing to upgrade the park because it lacks the capacity and know-how.
All that government at all levels needs, is to involve competent private sector to market, manage and pay the agreed tax. “Since 1979 when Olusegun Obasanjo established Kainji Lake, the first national park, and 1991 when five new ones were set up, you cannot point to the contributions of these parks in terms of revenue and even research to the GDP of the country. “They cannot continue to lay fallow, it is time to privatise, concession or look for competent managers to manage and make them economically viable like the parks in Kenya and South Africa, which we all visit”, Yahaya said.
OBINNA EMELIKE
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