Arochukwu needs urgent help in all spheres. For a town that has been left to drift for years without requisite infrastructural development, skeptics might ask, of what need is the development of tourism? Truth is that tourism may be Aro’s saving grace now- fastest pathway to rapid and sustainable development.

Poor State of Affairs: Arochukwu has more or less been a neglected town by successive governments at all levels, and most heartbreaking too, by Aro citizens themselves. Over the years, majority of Aro citizens have perfected ways of paying mere lip service to Arochukwu. And so year in, year out practically nothing gets done in spite of zillion hours of ineffectual meetings by various Aro based societies, clubs and associations. In other words, meetings are relentlessly held as a matter of idle routine, just for the sake of meetings and nothing more.

It’s therefore not a surprise that all the indices for measuring human development and happiness in Aro prove abysmally negative. Provision of primary and secondary health care for the people is almost non-existent. If a town with nineteen villages and adjoining communities cannot boast of the presence of a minimum number of five resident medical doctors at any given point, then the crisis is much worse than anyone can image. Primary and secondary education for children and youth suffers from poor funding, lack of qualified teachers to non-availability of educational facilities and instructional resources. Also, the unemployment rate in Aro is far above the national average due to the absence of industrial, business or entrepreneurial activities. Mortality rate (including maternal and infant mortality) remains very high as no weekend passes without multiple funerals or ceremonies associated with them .Need add that most of the deaths are linked to lack of access to quality medicare, poor dietary patterns and poverty.

Furthermore, the result of Arochukwu people’s collective inaction and negligence of their town is evidenced in the impassable internal roads in all the villages, undeveloped village markets and squares; the Civic centre project at Oror which is taken over by weeds and reptiles and now a white elephant; very low business activities, near total absence of entrepreneurial activities, very low farming activities resulting in over-dependence on other communities for food supply and non-availability of basic services that sustain human happiness and progress.

There is no doubt that self-centredness and personal aggrandizement on the part of most individuals and socio-cultural organizations in Aro and the diaspora on one hand, and lack of clear vision by all the levels of leadership and followership in Arochukwu would be implicated, if critical performance appraisals were to be conducted on the town from 1970 to 2015.

REMODELLING ARO AS A TOURIST DESTINATION

Story in the 21st century sells like hot cake. All over the world people are eager to tell, and by so doing sell their stories. For instance, the Nelson Mandela story is a multi-million dollar industry. Thus, each year people from all over the world troop to South Africa as tourists/hearers of that story. In 2013 “over 14 million arrivals” were recorded by South Africa and that greatly boosted the local economy.

Also, for centuries, Egypt has been pushing the pyramids’ story, so much so that tourism remains its main source of income. “Egypt’s income from tourism in 2014 stood at USD 7.5 billion”, and the number of tourists that visited Egypt ranged between 10-15 million.That will definitely decline in 2015 following the downing of the Russian flight over the Sinai Peninsula in November 2015.

Furthermore, 98 million tourists visited Orlando, Florida to see and hear the Walt Disney story alongside the American story in 2014. In the first quarter of 2015, 54.1 million tourists had already visited placing Florida ahead of New York in terms of the most preferred tourist destination in the whole of the Northern Hemisphere. To lose sight of the importance of tourism in sustaining growth and reducing poverty especially in Nigeria that is faced with increasing dwindling crude oil prices is to act in unforgiveable error and ignorance.

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Very well said.In the context of the trans-atlantic slave trade,there are 4 principal towns in sub-saharan West Africa-
1)Elmina Castle in Ghana
2)Badagry in Lagos Nigeria
3)Calabar in Nigeria
4)Arochukwu in Nigeria

All the above 3 have been well promoted by their host governments tto become proper tourist havens,attracting tons of tourists from near and the diaspora to these historic slave routes.Its a shame that Arochukwu has not been as lucky,as successive administrations in Abia state have failed to recognize the enormous potentials that Arochukwu holds for Tourism.

Perhaps if Arochukwu was in Cross River State and marketed as a sister town and kingdom to Calabar,that would be better than its present predicament in Abia state,as nde mba ovia individualistic behaviour is not concerned with history and is just concerned with accumulation of personal wealth.