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Government sets up tourism committee to boost IGR, GDP

By Victor Uzoho
20 July 2018   |   4:03 am
The Ado – Ota Local Government Area (LGA) in Ogun State has inaugurated a committee to help boost its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) through tourism.

The Ado – Ota Local Government Area (LGA) in Ogun State has inaugurated a committee to help boost its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) through tourism.

At the inauguration which held recently at the LGA’s headquarters, the Chairman, Ado-Ota LGA, Bashiru Oladimeji stated that the committee was geared towards promoting and exploring the tourism destinations in the LGA, to effectively grow its IGR and the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at large.

Speaking to The Guardian, Oladimeji noted that the project to revitalize the tourism potential of the LGA was partly motivated by the need to explore the many untapped tourism sites, both in the LGA and in the state at large.

He said, “It is an inspiration to us and a dream over the years to improve on the tourism potentials that we have in the LGA to be able to drive in more revenue and this is an opportunity for us and we will improve on it.

“This occasion also provides an opportunity for us to identify and tell the world that we have potentials as an LGA to set the pace in tourism. In Ota here, we have appreciable tourist centres that can matchup with any other centre in the country and the world at large.

“This is one of the vital ways to improve our GDP if properly tapped and harnessed. We believe that by bringing together experts in the tourism space, we can show our potentials and the cultural heritage of our people to the world.”

Oladimeji charged the committee to be dedicated in service as tourism cuts across different sectors of the Nigerian economy and will definitely help to grow the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the local government and that of the state.

The Chairman of the committee and Founder Jethro Club, Prince Adetunji Fadina, while canvassing the need to harness the tourism potentials of the LGA, noted that it has been a dream for the LGA in terms of policy, to do a template like the way it’s been done globally.

“In Nigeria, we focus on one product and that’s why. For tourism to be well developed in any community or nation, it has to stand alone and for us to be able to pull this initiative, we have to make sure that all products are well harnessed, projected and funded to turn Ota into a major destination brand.

“We intend to put up a road map in the next few weeks and we need to look at the area of our traditional cultural festivals that we can project effectively and we have to do things that would make the youths understand the dynamics of tourism.

“However, we have quack travel agencies that are operating in our vicinity and we need to look at areas of how we can help them to be able to register properly to be able to create more IGR for the LGA,” he said.

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