By Louis A. Koko Esq.
The only Garden City in Nigeria was conspicuously not on the list of tourist destinations in Detty December 2024. The city failed woefully to attract money-spending holidaymakers, hence earned near nothing from the huge revenue transactions in Detty December 2024. No thanks to bad political environment in Rivers state.
On the 50th anniversary of the creation of Rivers State, I published an article in Beacon Newspaper in June 2017, titled: ‘The Journey towards a Greater Rivers State’. It was serialised in three publications, Part 1, 11 and 111. In that article, I stated that though humongous oil revenue flows from Rivers State, it does not trickle down to the grassroots, it flies over the local economy of the state from one Bank account to another and is spent either in Lagos state or Abuja because we lack tourist and entertainment centres in Port Harcourt. I noticed that the upper and middle-level oil and gas workers spend their off-duty periods outside Rivers State because of the marginal number of conducive tourists and hospitality centres in the state.
I recommended that the Rivers state government should allow the showbiz spots in New GRA to thrive because of the potential these spots have in enabling the corporate earnings in the state to transmit into the local economy via payments for entertainment and hotel bookings in the state.
My advice to the state government came at a time when the former Governor, Chief Wike had banned the proliferation of nightclubs in New GRA.
Fortunately, the Governor did not implement the ban and the entertainment centres in that axis of Port Harcourt have increased considerably compared to when the article was written.
The huge Detty December revenue to businesses, especially the tourism and hospitality industry emphasises the need to prioritise the business of tourism and hospitality in Rivers State by active government interventions in building infrastructure, providing incentives for investors in the industry and maintaining the peace and security in the state.
If this is done by the pro-people government of Sir Siminalayi Fubara, I am optimistic that by next year the name of Rivers State will not be conspicuously missing from the list of benefiting states from Detty December 2025 tourism and hospitality transactions.
