How hospitality business can shore-up Nigeria’s image

By Princewill Ekwujuru

Before now, Nigeria had made few attempts at nation branding, with not so discernible  achievements. This started with the ‘Heart of Africa’ project, to the ‘Good people, Great Nation’ concept, the search for a strong national branding platform that could greatly resonate with Nigeria’s internal and external public cut the picture of a twisted journey.

In spite of the  efforts, the harvest has not been fruitful: There continued to be many more gloomy stories about Nigeria. All these give the nation long hours of negative TV film footages and sound bites, as well as miles of negative commentaries in the print media.


In the last few years, there have been concerted efforts by stakeholders on the need to promote Nigeria’s tourism potentials in order to diversify the revenue generation base of the country and avoid over dependence on oil and gas, in addition to conveying some form of positive news about the nation to the international community.

Today however, the potentials inherent in the nation’s culture and tourism sector as a strong unifying factor and nation branding platform now appear to have been discovered, thankfully through a forward looking initiative involving the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation and a group of Nigerian private and corporate individuals. This has given birth to what has now come to be known as the Nigeria, Our Heritage Project.

The first bold step took place in July when a stakeholder, Mr Fidelis Ekwunife Anosike, unveiled the ‘Nigeria, Our Heritage’ (NOH) project in Abuja, in collaboration with the ministry of tourism, culture and national orientation, and fully endorsed by the federal ministry of foreign affairs and Howard University Alumni Association. The NOH project is proudly supported by over 15 companies, some of which include the Nigeria Export Import (NEXIM) Bank, Benue State, Niger State, Ekiti State, Heritage Bank, Eko Atlantic, DSTV, Multichoice, CNN, DAAR communication, NERC and BGL, among others.

On Monday, 5th August 2014, an evening of entertainment centered on the centennial of Nigeria’s commonwealth, took place at the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts Concert Hall in Washington D.C. The event was organized by the Federal Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation to unveil the international leg of the “Nigeria: Our Heritage” project.
Present at the event were President Goodluck Jonathan, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Nigeria’s Ambassador to USA, a few Nigerian and American government and political personalities as well as several Nigerian celebrities, notably Don Jazzy, Rita Dominic, Ali Nuhu, Davido, Flavour, Tiwa Savage, Tee Billz, Masterkraft, Tola Odunsi, Leslie Kasumba, Di’Ja, Lola Ogunnaike, Obi Asika, Hakeem Kae-Kazim and Ubi Franklin, among others.

In his goodwill message at the event, President Jonathan promised to support the initiators of the project in the noble task of overhauling Nigeria’s image globally and promoting the country’s tourism and cultural heritage which he said was aimed at wealth creation as well as securing international trust for foreign investment.

While noting that the project would celebrate the rich cultural inheritage and vast economic endowment of Nigeria, he regretted that Nigeria had come under global media conspiracy that brought humiliation to her.


Culled from www.vanguardngr.com