As Folarin Coker, Director General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Authority (NTDA) bows out at the end of this month (March 2025), completing a two-tenure of eight years, the juror is out already as to how well he performed as the head of the body charged with the development, marketing and promotion of Nigerian tourism. This reporter takes a cursory look of his performance, noting that the eight years was a miss-opportunity yet again to develop and promote Nigerian tourism judging by the indices on the ground…
Time is a luxury that anyone can ill-afford because it is fleeting, transient and never under man’s control. Hence the dictum, ‘make the best of today’ or ‘time waits for no man,’ as it is recorded in the Nigerian local parlance.
By the end of this month, March 31, 2025, the Director General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Authority (NTDA), Folarin Coker, will bow out and bid the Authority and Nigerian tourism family goodbye.
He was first appointed into the office in March 2017 by former President Muhammadu Buhari. Four years after he was reappointed for a second tenure by Buhari. Having served for eight years, Coker holds the enviable record of being the longest serving DG of the Authority, which was formerly Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC).
High expectations
The coming of Coker heralded a new hope and high expectations for the industry. This is because he came at a time when the industry could be described as rudderless.
With the industry in disarray and the operators frustrated, the coming of Coker in 2017 was seen as a big relief as a promise of hope and high expectation once again resonated in the industry.
He was a former Commissioner for Tourism and Culture under former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State. Though his tenure was cut short as he was only in the saddle for over a year, he was credited to have measured up especially with the One Lagos Fiesta created by him.
Against this promising background, the expectations were high that Coker, with his experience and knowledge of the industry, will work closely with the operators to bridge the existing dichotomy then by recovering lost grounds and move the tourism sector to a higher plane.
Dashed hope and expectations
Coker is highly cerebral and could easily sway people and win any debate on the rostrum. He is also very skillful and persuasive when presenting his point of view.
But how well did he use his natural endowments and advantages to benefit the Authority and the industry? I dare say from where I stand and having followed closely his stint in this eight years that this is debatable.
In taking a panoramic view of the eight years stint of Coker at NTDA, his sojourn could be described as not only that of a dashed hope and high expectations but a missed opportunity by him to write his name in gold and put Nigerian tourism on the global tourism map.
This is because it is hard to see any outstanding, enriching and enduring marker laid for the development and growth of the industry in the eight years that he was in charge.
Policy direction
One of the easiest ways of gauging the performance of any office holder is through the policy enunciated by the officer. Coker’s policy direction could be gleaned from his pronouncements during a meeting with the delegation of the Association of Nigerian Journalists and Writers of Tourism (ANJET) who paid him a courtesy office in His Abuja office shortly after his assumption of office in 2017.
He said on the occasion: “We have to accept that the dynamics of tourism marketing has changed and then proceed to embrace it. In the same manner, we also need to identify our key products in comparative terms. What do we have that others don’t have? That is what we have to identify and market.
”My focus for now will be the development of the domestic industry which I believe is much more sustainable and which, if properly done, will drive the international market for us. If we are able to get it right, then, the international segment will naturally take care of itself. We have to start from home.”
Three basic directions were enunciated by him on the occasion and were subsequently amplified by him in many forums and encounters with the industry’s stakeholders. These three points are the marketing and promotion of Nigeria tourism through the use of technology and the development and promotion of the domestic tourism alongside the identification of tourism product (s) of the country that would be scaled up to the international scene.
However, there was no clear policy guidelines by him on how these could be achieved.
Promotion and marketing of Nigeria on the technological space
One thing that Coker was quite heavy on and preached always was the use of the technological space in marketing and promotion, jettisoning the traditional marketing space, with so much talk on Google and creating a virtual site of Nigeria.
How much of that was achieved in his eight years is debatable as Nigeria’s presence on the technological space is one of the poorest and most marginalised of all African destinations.
A quick Google search will reveal this as you will be taken aback by the kind of information and image on Nigeria that will pop up.
One would had expected that with the much talk by him on technology and engagement with Generation – Z that he would have populated the technological space with amazing images and stories on Destination Nigeria.
Besides, have trade partners, who are not ‘analogue’ (Using Coker’s coinage), but are internet suave and adept at the use of technology to promote Nigeria, working with the marketing and promotion department of the agency.
You would need no further convincing of how poorly Coker fared on this score after a visit to NTDA website. The site is a sad commentary on Destination Nigeria given how beggarly and colourless it is judging by the dearth of information and images on Destination Nigeria.
It raises the question of what happened to the much talked about Tour Nigeria project of his, which was supposed to be a virtual tour of Nigeria? This was one project that Coker talked about on every rostrum and to anyone who cared to listened.
You will not only be embarrassed but dumbfounded and befuddled when you visit the Tour Nigeria bar on the website of NTDA. It is a study on how not to promote a destination.
Domestic scene
With so much emphasis by him on the domestic scene, one would had thought that eight years after Nigerian tourism domestic scene would be bustling, however, that is not the case.
The only reason why the domestic scene is still alive today is practically due to the hard work of the private operators who through the years have remained consistent and devoted to developing and promoting the domestic scene through their various businesses and activities.
It is on record that Coker at the onset of his administration created one domestic product, namely: Flavours of Nigeria. Flavours of Nigeria was a three-day event that was designed to promote Nigeria’s culinary treats.
I believed this event only held for two years and after those two seasons it died a natural death. Besides this, there is no evidence of any other tourism project (s), either created or promoted by Coker all through these eight years sojourn.
It is quite sad and unfortunate to note that as the body principally responsible for the development, marketing and promotion of Nigerian tourism, nothing was done in that respect by Coker, especially in the area of promoting Nigerian tourism.
The promotion of a destination is quite an expensive venture hence globally it is done by the national and regional tourism boards, while the private sector latched on this to promote their share of the market. The only semblance of promotion of Nigeria are the two adverts on Channels and CNN by the National Orientation Agency and the Minister of Tourism, Hannatu Musawa respectively.
In one’s reckoning, these two adverts lacked the basic elements, message and attractive pull, especially that of Musawa, which was more of personal promotion. However, that is not the focus of this presentation as it would be properly dissected in another presentation in the coming days.
However, that of Nigeria was a different ball game as the business was all left for the private operators to carry on their shoulders alongside struggling to get visibility and promote their businesses.
For this eight years, NTDA was almost absent in the lives of the operators as it is difficult to point to any form of assistance or partnership deals inked for their benefits by NDTA under Coker.
What begged for answer is what did Coker do with the marketing and promotion department of NTDA, which is headed by a full fledge director and complement of personnel?
To think that an agency that is saddled with promotion and marketing, with an avowed commitment to promoting and developing domestic tourism by the DG could not lift a finger in this direction given its huge budgetary allocation yearly is unfathomable.
One could list a series of domestic events ranging from Carnival Calabar, Durbar celebrations, Osun Osogbo International Cultural Festival, Igue Festival, to Sango Festival that are celebrated yearly in Nigeria that a forward looking agency like NTDA should had supported and promoted.
It is even more disappointing when you visit the website of NTDA to see that none of these festivals and other notable events on the unofficial tourism calendar of Nigeria are not captured by NTDA in its so much hyped website.
Also, it is on record that for the last couple of years Coker attended the annual General Meetings of the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) and the National Transportation Tourism Summit and Expo in Abuja and a few tourism related events only for the optics and nothing more. At those events he made flowery speeches and promises that were only observed in the breach.
The World Tourism Day celebration held yearly, September 27 that was traditionally organised by NTDA was jettisoned. To avoid vacuum the Ministry of Tourism and the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) took over the hosting of the celebration at the national.
The poor performance of Coker and his glaring absence on the domestic scene was so obvious that following pressure from the travel media and the operators that the former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, was forced to visit Coker in his Area One office, Abuja, to read the riot act to him.
Rather than step to the plate after the visit, Coker totally went underground, burying NTDA with him. This was also obvious when at the dawn of the creation of the defunct Ministry of Tourism, the former Minister, Mrs Lola Ade-John, was ill-disposed to perform her ministerial duties for months, leaving tourism without a leadership.
Everyone expected Coker to come to the party, however, he dug deeper into his cocoon, leaving the former DG of NIHOTOUR, Alhaji Nura Sani Kangiwa, whose primary function was that of providing training for the sector, to step into the space. Kangiwa also provided a cushion for the Minister when she finally resumed duties and fought hard to gain lost ground.
That same scenery is playing out presently with tourism added to the Ministry of Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy, under Hannatu Musawa, who obviously is overburdened and committing unforced errors when it comes to tourism as she has shown her lack of ability to connect the dots.
The expectation would have been for Coker to step up and be counted by playing the role of the lead agency for tourism. But that is not the case as tourism is practically on its back heels, with no one leading the charge. Were the DG of NIHOTOUR, Abisoye Fagade, not new to the beat, there is the possibility that he would have assumed the lead role in the sector while NDTA continues to take the back seat.
NTDA Act 2023
However, one of the markers of his tenure is the NTDA Act 2023. Coker saw the enactment of the Act as the magic wand to solving the problems of Nigerian tourism, unfortunately, since the passing of the Act, Coker went quiet on it. Every of the promises he made prior to its coming into existence never got traction as he just didn’t know where to begin from knowing that the Act negated the Supreme Court judgment of 2013 that withered down the power of NTDA or the federal government over tourism.
International scene
On the international scene, the story is not any different as Coker made it quite clear that it was a ‘no go area’ for him. He maintained that Nigeria has no business showcasing at the international scene because it has no product to market.
The promise of creating or identifying tourism products for Nigeria that would be promoted at the international stage was totally forgotten.
While Nigeria closed its doors to the international scene without making any attempt to develop any product or source market, interestingly, other markets, which saw Nigeria as their source market, particularly African countries, took advantage of this to flood the Nigerian market to woo Nigerians, with many of them engaging in tradeshows in some of the cities and engaging trade partners to drive business to their destinations.
It is on record that Coker and the former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, while keeping Nigeria out of the international scene, rekindled relationship with the UN Tourism and attended all UN Tourism related events, especially the General Assembly and hosted two UN Tourism events within the space of eight years.
Coker attended last year’s UN Tourism World Tourism Day celebration held in Tbilisi, Georgia while back home, the World Tourism Day celebration was anything but colourless.
It is hard to see any benefit that Nigerian tourism derived from the huge financial resources that were spent on attending UN Tourism events across the world and the hosting of two UN Tourism events. Nigerian tourism today bleeds from the lack of infusion of financial resources and direction by the federal government as the agency and ministry charged with leading in this direction are preoccupied with different agenda.
Also, while Coker never saw the need for Nigeria to showcase at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London, he, however, never failed to attend the WTM London conferences and UN Tourism events held during WTM London.
Endnote
In conclusion, it is safe to say that Coker is leaving the Nigerian tourism worse off or better than he met it? Well, your guess is as good as mine. However, the indices on the ground point to the fact that there is nothing concrete to celebrate about the Nigerian tourism for these eight years.
If not for the private sector operators who rose to the challenge and kept the light aglow, Nigerian tourism would had been a totally wasteland in terms of its development and growth as the federal government and its ministry and agency net contributions to it could be said to be zero.
As Coker takes a bow from the scene, it is left to be seen whether NTDA or the industry operators will roll out the red carpet and the drums in his celebration. If such celebration hold, would it be a mockery of him or altruistic celebration of him?
Whatever happens, it is sure that the verdict of history will not be biased as the right call will be made on his performance when the time comes.
As the nation and the industry operators await in bathed breath in the coming days for his replacement, it is hoped that the federal government will heed the call of the operators by appointing someone with the right acumen, education, intelligence and the hunger to deliver and write his or her name in the sand of history and not someone who care less about his/her legacy and a typical Nigerian politician, who is beholding to a godfather somewhere.
If the way this present government has treated tourism is anything to judge by then this may just be a deferred hope yet again. Well, one can only keep hope alive because hope is the only commodity that keeps the human spirit alive.
