Nigeria earned mere N128m from seven national parks in three years

The Nigerian government earned N128,672,523 internally generated revenue from the seven national parks across the country in three years.

In the period in review, between 2017 and 2019, about 29,969 tourists visited the seven parks for games and tourism related activities.

However, most earning came from National Park Headquarters Abuja and Gashaka-Gumti National Park, while Chad Basin National Park ranked the least in earnings and visitations due to the high security risk posed by terrorist activities of Boko Haram in the North East of Nigeria.

Beyond the security risk, some tourism experts think the parks are grossly failing in contributing adequately to the gross domestic product (GDP), and in aiding the diversification of the economy, considering their sheer size and potential.

The experts are worried that despite occupying a total of 22,206km2 of conserved area representing 2.4 percent of Nigeria’s 923,768km2 landmass, the seven parks have little or nothing to show for it in terms of revenue, visitations and wildlife population like national parks in the Eastern and Southern African countries.

They think the parks can earn far more than the revenue being quoted by the park authorities if the right things are done to woo visitors in large numbers.

“In Ghana, there are 21 Wildlife Protected Areas totalling 1,347,600 hectares or 5.6 percent of the country’s landmass, yet they earn more foreign exchange from them, with many Nigerian visitors trooping in on daily basis, leaving our parks empty,” Michael Numa, a private conservationist, decries.

In the same vein, Adeola Ajaga, a destination manager and tour operator, notes that most Nigerian visitors to East Africa buy holiday packages that must include wildlife safari, but hardly visit Obudu, Yankari or any of the seven national parks for same appeal.

“We still have rare wildlife at Afi Mountain Sanctuary in Cross River State, Yankari Game Reserve, Cross River National Park, the enthralling Gashaka-Gumti National Park, among others, but our people are outbound. They like to spend more to see what is even more awesome in their backyard,” she says.

Insisting that tourism is lowest hanging fruit for the diversification of the Nigerian economy, the tourism experts insist that the government and private sector need to collaborate in resuscitating the parks, repopulate the wildlife and upgrade the infrastructure in order to make them more appealing to Nigerians and foreigners like other enterprising national parks in Africa.

However, Ibrahim M. Goni, conservator general, National Park Service, notes that though the parks may not be where they should be yet, there are a number of improvements that are giving hope to flourishing parks soon.

The conservator general, who released the revenue and tourists figures of the parks in his presentation at a Zoom Conference organised by the 7 Wonders of Nigeria recently, noted that the parks have faced many challenges that have also impacted on number of visitations and revenue earnings.

According to Goni, the seven national parks have beautiful landscapes and diverse scenic ecosystems that provide unique opportunities for local and international tourists to experience active outdoor recreation, inspiration and tranquillity, but some challenges have held it back from optimising its potential.

Top among the challenges, according to Goni, are: insecurity, poor park infrastructure, lack of private sector involvement, poor domestic tourism by Nigerians, lack of disposable income to embark on leisure travel and lack of political will to enhance conservation and foster ecotourism development as alternative source of government revenue.

Despite the challenges, he noted that there have been efforts at enhancing tourism in parks, especially provision of tourist facilities, campaigns and marketing of the parks, joint security operations and intelligence sharing with sister agencies.

One of the highlights of the efforts, according to Goni, is the partial commercialisation of three national parks; Cross River, Gashaka Gumti and Kainji Lake chosen as pilot scheme with a transaction advisor appointed to guide the process.

Meanwhile, many Nigerian tourists think that the efforts to reposition the parks have not yielded much fruit as they still have not heard much of the parks, their appeals and wildlife populations, engaging activities and other attractions that woo them to other countries’ national parks.

As well, many tourism experts think that government should adopt full commercialisation and possibly handover the parks to professionals to turn them around, while they collect taxes accruing to it from such enterprises.