Erm seems like everybody missed it or what happened to the "millions of Foriegn tourists" that were expected to flood the capital bringing in huge revenue for nigeria to justify the huge amount spent

Where are the Residents of abuja?

, what was the cost implications, i guess we now have many millionaires in abuja now!!
They didnt involve the private sector at all unlike argungu,osun-osogbo

I saw a TV programme about this yesterday.
It looked brilliant. I'd have loved to have been there. It didn't look all that busy - the streets that the parade was travelling through looked fairly quiet, as though not even many local people turned out to watch it, which seems a shame. If you compare it to something like the Notting Hill Carnival in London it was practically deserted! But it takes a long time for events to build up into major events. A 'one-off' event might not atttract much attention. It would need to be run for several years to build up its name and reputation. Is it going to happen every year now? They need to start promoting it more abroad then -  I hadn't heard of it before - I just found it when I was flipping through the tv channels.

I don't know that I would spend lots of money coming to Nigeria just for that though. I suppose it could attract tourists who were already thinking of going to Africa to go there instead of somewhere else, and it could attract tourists already travelling round Africa. They did interview some tourists who really enjoyed it - I'm sure it could be very successful in future.


So many countries in Africa are famous as tourist destinations and people in other countries have big ambitions to go there. Nigeria is not one of those countries anyone ever thinks of going to for a holiday. I'm sure it has many good qualities and areas that could be promoted more widely. For example, lots of people want to go to Africa to see wildlife. Yet whenever I've asked a Nigerian about the wildlife in Nigeria they say 'oh there's a few monkeys' and that's it. But when I've looked on-line I see that you have some wonderful national park areas with a very wide range of wildlife including chimpanzees, hippos, etc etc. If educated Nigerians don't even know what resources your country has, how will a potential tourist know about them?  I remember reading a story by an Englishman in Nigeria who kept asking his driver what all the birds and things are that he saw around the place and the man could only tell him 'bird'. Why don't Nigerians take an interest in these things? It is exactly what tourists want to see and find out about. I don't expect a driver to be a bird expert but surely he must have known more than just 'bird'. Is it time to take tourism more seriously in Nigeria?