US embassy cable - 03LAGOS2293

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 LAGOS 002293 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON, NI 
SUBJECT: TOURISM IN NIGERIA: FOR THE BIRDS 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED 
 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary: If a tourist came to Nigeria to look at 
endangered species (or for any other reason), he or she would 
be the most endangered species of all.  Nigeria has 
practically no tourist industry, but there is no inherent 
reason why that should be the case.  While we might have 
doubts about anyone who came to Nigeria for its urban charm, 
from the standpoint of wildlife there is much to see, and 
ecotourists needn't fight the crowds.  Last week a Lagos 
officer joined a group traveling around the country to assess 
the potential for bird and wildlife tourism.  The group 
included the owners of a bird tour company, a producer of 
wildlife programs for the Discovery channel, and Phil Hall, a 
long-time naturalist in Nigeria and the country 
representative of a foundation that has supported wildlife 
conservation and national park management for many years.  A 
BBC correspondent joined the group at several points and 
aired several reports on its progress.  The group concluded 
its trip much sobered and discouraged by conditions on the 
ground.  The head of the Nigerian wildlife service met with 
President Obasanjo October 27 to report on the trip and 
discuss its implications for the opening of ecotourism in 
Nigeria; Obasanjo was reportedly taken aback that anyone had 
evinced interest in Nigeria's national parks, but he agreed 
to throw some extra resources in their direction.  Despite 
GON efforts, or the lack thereof, a few private initiatives 
hold promise for creating sites that tourists will actually 
pay money to visit.  End summary. 
 
 
2.  (U) From an ecotourism standpoint, Nigeria has one 
particularly potent draw: picathartes oreas, Africa's most 
sought after bird.  It is rare, unique and on most birders' 
top 10 list worldwide.  It can be seen only on the 
Nigeria/Cameroon border, but it is apparently present in 
Gabon.  At present all birders who want to see it go to 
Cameroon, where it is a five-day round trip (once in country) 
to its nesting sites.  The sites in Nigeria are much more 
accessible (and as an added bonus, Nigeria has forest 
elephants and mountain gorillas). 
 
 
3.  (SBU) The birding tour company was so confident of being 
able to put together a workable tour centered on picathartes 
that it has already advertised a tour for next year.  The 
itinerary would include the Cattle Ranch at Obudu, the hill 
village near the picathartes sites, savannah and riverine 
environments along the Niger River, Okomu National Park 
(probably the best remaining rainforest in West Africa) and 
the Jos Plateau.  The organizers, however, began to worry 
once they saw conditions on the ground.  Well-heeled birders 
are usually not rough and ready young backpackers.  They may 
be prepared for some rough roads, but they typically expect 
nothing like the road to picathartes, a barely passable clay 
track featuring bridges with gaping holes.  Planks needed to 
be carefully adjusted so vehicles would not fall into 
streams.  Several weeks' work with a bulldozer in the dry 
season would take care of much of the problem, but even with 
improved access, the Cattle Ranch may leave travelers 
disappointed.  Although it is the premier tourist 
establishment in the east, it has no landline and cannot be 
reached by e-mail. 
 
 
4.  (SBU) The visit to the savannah/riverine environment in 
Edo State went without incident, but things went downhill at 
Okomu National Park.  The access road was a survival contest 
with stuck vehicles blocking the way.  One of the group's 
vehicles nearly became mired, and the BBC 4x4 got stuck for 
two hours.  Again, this is nothing a bulldozer couldn't fix 
if the work were done in the right way at the right time and 
kept up.  The lodge was a shock.  Although freshly painted on 
the outside, it looked derelict inside: shabby walls, peeling 
linoleum, black mold on the doors and ceilings, and furniture 
likely banned by some international convention.  The 
potentially picturesque thatched hut built as a dining area 
needed serious attention and cleaning (termite tubes climbed 
untended up wood surfaces to the roof).  We were told the 
national park service is not maintaining the lodge in the 
hope that the state government will build a new one.  The 
latter is seriously considering doing so, and we sat in on a 
meeting at the park to work on the proposal.  Whether a new 
lodge would be any better maintained than the existing one is 
a real question, but with new facilities, the park could be a 
gold mine.  The group found fresh elephant tracks and saw 
scores of bird species, many endemics included.  Several 
canopy platforms have been built, and these afford good views 
of exotic species (reporting officer climbed 130 feet up the 
side of a tree to reach one, an experience for which he 
considers the current post differential inadequate). 
 
 
5.  (SBU) The trip back to Lagos on the Benin/Lagos 
expressway was a complete showstopper.  The divided highway 
is always a horror show; it was no different this time.  The 
organizers concluded they would have to begin the trip 
somewhere other than Lagos, Calabar perhaps, and cover as 
much internal distance by air as possible.  The cost of air 
charter in Nigeria is almost completely prohibitive, but 
staying in the air would minimize the constant problem of 
shakedowns by police at the country's ubiquitous roadblocks. 
 These are beyond annoying.  They can occur every couple of 
minutes for miles on end, and without diplomatic plates or a 
willingness to shut up and pay up, every stop can be a 
problem. 
 
 
6.  (SBU) We asked the tour organizers what the odds might be 
of Nigeria working up to 500 ecotourists a year (the most 
popular preserve in Costa Rica, for comparison, gets 100,000 
visitors a year, that is the preserve, not the country). 
The odds aren't good, they said.  Too many things need to get 
fixed and stay fixed, and Nigeria's reputation is working 
against it.  They were not even sure they should run the one 
trip to which they committed.  If the ecology doesn't pull 
the tourists in, of course, there are always the glamorous 
casinos of Lagos.  We stopped at one near the Consulate 
recently and found a dozen waiters asleep on the kitchen 
floor and the croupiers asleep with their heads on the green 
baize. 
 
 
7.  (U) Comment: Tourism is a sensitive subject here. 
Nigerians and their supporters believe they get a bad rap 
internationally and regularly protest that the State 
Department's travel warnings are inaccurate and unfair. 
That said, most of our contacts will admit that the birders' 
experience wasn't exceptional.  Nigerians simultaneously 
boast of wonderful natural sites and bemoan the lack of 
infrastructure to get there.  Even worse, the Miss World 
fiasco of 2002 was a devastating blow to Nigeria's image for 
anyone thinking of visiting. 
 
 
8.  (U) Despite the doom and gloom, there is a glimmer of 
light on the horizon.  Travel advertising in the U.S. is 
increasing in conjunction with the recently established World 
Airways direct flights from New York and Atlanta to Lagos 
(although the jury is still out on how successful that effort 
will be).  The indefatigable president of the Africa Tourism 
Association is a Nigerian, Wanle Akinboboye, who struggles to 
bring tourists, including a steady trickle of 
African-American mayors ) to Nigeria and has built an 
internationally acceptable resort that goes down well with 
foreign guests.  There is also an annual African Heritage 
Festival, heavily subsidized by the Lagos State government, 
that mightil impresses the handfu of Americans who attend. 
 
 
9.  (U) The just-cocluded 8th All Africa Games was the 
biggest boonto Nigerian tourism since Festac in 1977. 
Accordng to the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Tourism 
Association Omotay Omotosho, between August and id-October 
2003 there were 70,000 visitors assocated with the Games, 
25,000 of which were considred bona fide tourists who sought 
information frm the National Travel Bureau. 
 
 
10.  (U) For th most part, whatever hope there is for a 
tourism industry in Nigeria lies with private sector efforts. 
 A few resorts are opening, and hotels are refurbishing with 
the knowledge that if you don't build it, they won't come. 
That said, Nigeria's take-off as a travel destination is 
still a long way off.  End comment. 
HINSON-JONES