We'll overhaul Oyo tourism

Events

Exec Suites

Quick Links

We'll overhaul Oyo tourism - Hon Adejumobi

Written by Duncan Thursday, 24 March 2011

Oyo State Labour Party's deputy governorship candidate and former majority leader in
the state's House of Assembly, Hon Ademola Adejumobi, has given assurance of the
overhauling of the state's tourism industry.

Hon Adejumobi, who said this in a chat with TTH during the weekend, added that the
state's tourism was bereft of development and exploration. This, he ascribed to the
level of education of the past administrations about the potentialities of the
industry to evoke affluence in the state.

"Nobody with good insight of tourism as an economy booster will not give it
attention; creating a concrete structure for its sustainable growth, continually
charging and giving needed supports to the stakeholders in the industry.

"But the Adeduntan-led administration when assumed office in May will address the
decadence in the industry and resuscitate it to propel affluence and unprecedented
development in the state, and make it proud nationally and internationally.

"To achieve this, we'll constitute a progressive-minded team, comprising of
stakeholders in the industry to visit the tourist sites in the state and discover
new ones, with the aim of developing, promoting and exploring them to better the
lots of the state and the people therein," Hon Adejumobi disclosed.

In the same vein, the party's candidate for the House of Assembly, representing
Iwajowa Constituency, Hon Demola Tijani, has stressed the need to make the tourism
board of the state autonomous.

This, according to him, will enable the board fully discharge its responsibilities,
and set Oyo State tourism on the fat lane of development.

"Tourism parastatal, which was supposed to be autonomous, was wrongly subservient to
the ministry of information, which shouldn't be so. This was a miscalculation. And
it had incapacitated the parastatal from living up to expectation; developing and
promoting the tourist potentialities in the state to better the lots of the state
and its people. This had not only dug the grave of the state's tourism industry, but
buried it and almost wiped away it's memory.

"But it is not yet over for the industry to be resuscitated. To achieve this, let
the tourism parastatal be autonomous, even at the federal level; empower the
parastatal with all necessary things to be productive and give them target, which if
not met, the people in charge should be questioned and tried," Tijani said.

The former Chairman, foreign relations, tourism and training, promised to move the
motion for the independence of the parastatal if elected a member of the state house
in the April poll.

Hon Tijani disclosed that his presence in the state house of representative in the
coming political dispensation will propel the expected all-round development in the
state, "as developmental motions in all facets of the state economy would be moved
and influenced for passing into law."

On the controversial Agodi Gardens, Tijani said: "Agodi Gardens is an eco-tourist
site. And when I get back to the house, we will make sure that the Agodi Gardens is
no more under the ministry of agriculture or information, but directly under the
tourism board. We will legislate to that effect. And the floor will uphold it, once
the floor uphold it, the executive cannot run away from their responsibilities.