Enugu Plans Tourism Documentary

The tourism potentials of Enugu State are being compiled to showcase its rich cultural heritage, according to the state commissioner for culture and tourism, Hon Ugonna Ibe.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with THE WHISTLER in Enugu, Tuesday, Commissioner Ibe described the state as a tourism hub, and commended Gov Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for giving his ministry the needed support to operate optimally. He said so far, his ministry had initiated some concepts to discover talents with a view to nurturing them to stardom.

In his words, “The recent Enugu State Talent Hunt was organised in conjunction with Encyclotainment, a tourism consultancy firm, to discover hidden talents across the length and breadth of the state. They range from haircutting, music, dancing, crafts, to a host of them. We want to encourage them to go to the next level, just like Phyno and Flavour. The programme was successful, although the fact that we just emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic affected it generally.”

While thanking the state government for providing his ministry the necessary tools to excel, Ibe said, “Enugu has a rich cultural and historical background. Those are the advantages we have as the capital of the old Eastern region. We have many sites and sounds across the state. Overall, we have peace in the state, and we give glory to this administration under Gov Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. There would be no way tourism can thrive under hostilities. Currently, we are set to showcase what we have, to attract people and investors to come to the state to have a feel. This is necessary because before now, everybody had been dependent on oil money, but the oil money is not forthcoming anymore. So it makes it imperative that we now have to look inwards. Our ministry is organising a documentary of all the tourist sites in the state, including Awhum waterfall, Ezimo waterfall, Isuawa cave and waterfall, and Ezeagu tourist complex. Lejja at Nsukka has the oldest iron smelting industry. It has been carbon-tested and proven to have existed for about 4, 000 years. We are trying to bring all these things together to market them. We want to showcase these things, and also attract investments because government cannot do basically everything.”

He also appealed for support from communities and local government areas where the sites were located for maximum efficiency. According to him, “We are looking at public-private-partnership (PPP). The intention is to make Enugu a tourist hub. Like Oliver Twist, I plead with the state government to do more in making this sector radiant. It was a forgotten sector due to age-long neglect. Behind this sector, there is a lot to tap into. One of the four cardinal agenda of this administration is rural development. We cannot talk about rural development without talking about some of the tourist sites that are domiciled in rural areas.”