Tourism Is A Catalyst For Job, Wealth Creation - Duke

Former Cross River State Governor, Dr. Donald Duke delivering 31st convocation lecture of Unical

Former Governor of Cross River State, Dr. Donald Duke has said that Tourism is a viable sector that if properly harnessed can address the menace of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria.

Duke said this while presenting the 31st convocation lecture of the University Calabar with the theme : "Tourism in National Development".

The former Governor who is renowned for his achievements in the tourism sector said that tourism is a catalyst for wealth and job creation.

While regretting that governments at all levels have not given serious attention to the sector, he said that the beauty of tourism is that unlike other sectors where wealth creation is from top to bottom, tourism ensue wealth creation is from bottom to top.

He urged governments to invest appropriately in the sector as it has the potentials to address many challenges confronting the country.

According to him, "Job creation is the most important enterprise of government and  that is the beauty of tourism. Tourism creates jobs and wealth and its wealth is adopt the bottom-top approach.

Tourism has the potentials to address many challenges facing Nigeria including the Boko Haram. One of the reasons behind the increasing spate of insecurity in the country is unemployment. When the youths are properly engaged, there will not want to use their hands to destroy what they survive from.

Also speaking, former Governor of Akwa Ibom state and the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio said that tourism can drive the nation's economy even better than oil.

He added that when he was Governor, he invested heavily in tourism which is one of the reasons that brought the state to limelight.

On his part, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Zana Akpagu thanked the guest Lecturer and Senator Akpabio for identifying with the University.

He said that as a former member of Duke's cabinet, he was committed to fostering his legacies in tourism which was why he was turning the University into a tourism destination.

Akpagu added that "As your former cabinet member, I learned a lot from you and have been working to foster your legacies especially in the tourism sector. We seriously sympathise with you that your legacies are left to wither away by successive administrations but we in Unical are working to ensure we don't let them die completely.

As part of our efforts to sustain your legacies, we have added Tourism and Carnival Studies to our ever expanding programmes. We have also introduced the department of Music as well as Fine and Applied Arts. You don't do carnival without arts and we make bold to say that all these are products of your ideas.

"We won't rest; we will continue to do our best to ensure Unical become bigger, bolder and greater. Thank you for identifying with us".