The Minister of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, has said the ministry is working on many initiatives to make a Nigeria tourism destination, especially adding economic growth and job creation to the country.
Speaking Thursday in Abuja, during a panel session at the 68 CAF UN Tourism Commission for Africa, with the theme “boosting social impact and education in tourism through innovation, AI and creative industries in Africa,” Musawa said the ministry has initiated policies on intellectual property, including creative economy and cultural policies.
She said: “We’re trying to do something different in terms of adding growth to the country; economic growth and job creation. One of the policies that we’re talking about for the creative economy is intellectual property. That is the first thing.
“It’s very important for us to put in intellectual property that is robust, that is very intricate, that will be able to pull in investments and that will be able to protect players and, of course, then tourism policy as well. There are two policies that we already have finished, that we’ve packaged and we’re taking to the National Executive Council soon.
“Our ministry, when it came in, it had an eight-point agenda and 14 separate initiatives. So in addition to the infrastructure and the policy is also soft power. Because it is the soft power that will bring investment into the country. So one of the main initiatives we have on the soft power is Destination 2030, Nigeria Everywhere, leveraging on that content, speed, and talent that the world seems to be interested in Nigeria for.
“We will leverage on that content not only to report who we are as a people, to tell people in the world who we are, and the work that we’re doing and to appreciate our form and our expression as a people, but to also bring an interest into Nigeria.”
Also speaking, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Seychelles, Ambassador Louis Sylvestre Radegonde, said the ministry is looking at activities that will develop its villages, including cooking, dancing, art classes that will attract tourists to the country.