Says conduct unprofessional, urges Tinubu to call Fagade to order
The Nigerian Hotel and Catering Institute (NHCI) has condemned what it described as the unprofessional conduct of the National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) over the arrest of some hotel personnel and disruption of their operations in Lagos State last week in respect of registration of hotels and their operators.

It, therefore, called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to prevail on the Director-General of the training Institute, Dr Abisoye Fagade, to put an immediate end to the farcical exercise, which it said, was illegal and contravenes the Nigerian Constitution, the Supreme Court judgment of 2013 and a court ruling arising from the case instituted by the Hotels Owners and Managers Association of Lagos (HOMAL) at a Magistrate’s Court in Lagos, challenging the NIHOTOUR Act of 2022.

Reacting to this development, NHCI, in a statement signed by its President and Chairman of Council, Victor Ola Kayode, noted: ”We as a professional body viewed these actions as an act that is highly unprofessional for an organisation that purportedly wants to regulate professional practice in the hospitality and tourism practice in Nigeria.

”It is more inappropriate to have seen such a body utilising the instrumentality of government to coerce legitimate private operators in the industry to dance to its dictates notwithstanding the fact that there was a subsisting judgment on such matter by the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 2013.”