Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, Director-General National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), says President Bola Tinubu has the capacity to take the nation’s tourism sector to the desired destination.
Runsewe said this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.
He said the quality and calibre of advisers the president had appointed showed his administration was ready for business.
He said Tinubu displayed so much passion for tourism and did so much for the sector during his tenure as governor of Lagos State.
Runsewe said Tinubu, as governor, invited foreign investors to develop tourism in the state, in the areas of hotel registration, and grading, among others.
The NCAC boss said if the president had done all that as state governor, Nigerians should be ready for a turn —around of the nation’s tourism sector.
“My appeal to Nigerians is that they should be patient and take things easy with him. I am competent to speak about what he did in the sector because I was the DG of tourism at the federal.
“We must be ready to see a new Nigeria, new values, new orientation and new beginning,” he said.
Runsewe, who noted that journalists were key to the development of any sector, said their support was needed to promote and move the sector forward.
He commended Alhaji Nura Kangiwa, Director-General, National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), for the recent training programme he organised for journalists, in commemoration of the 2023 gastronomy festival.
He described the training as innovative and helpful as it was designed to enhance the capacities of the benefitting journalists.
“My appeal today is that we continue to partner journalists with a view to developing the sector.
“For a few years now, the sector has suffered because journalists have not been given the role they are supposed to play.
“My view is that we work more with journalists, re-engineer and reawaken both side’s consciousness on how to report this sector the right way,” he said.
