Evangelist Ajibola Ogunkeyede is the chief Executive Officer of Ufit Fly, a household name in travel and tourism sector in Nigeria, he was honoured on Thursday honoured with an award of excellence by the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies NANTA at their end of the year dinner. In this interview with Remi Oladoye, Ogunkeyede laments the slow pace of development in tourism and aviation sector and called on the government to reconsider their stands on investment in the sectors.
You are one of the recipients of prestigious NANTA Award this year, how do you feel been honored
Firstly, I want to appreciate God Almighty for the opportunity to be alive today, I also want to appreciate the committee who put together this great wonderful occasion and to have deem it fit to recognize my person and to the organization at large , I want to appreciate every one of them and I pray the organization NANTA will continue to grow higher and higher in Jesus name
As a stakeholder with decades o experience in the travel industry, what do you think are the challenges of Travel industry in Nigeria?
Well to things, the first one is foreign exchange, also the federal government and Nigeria as a whole have not tap into the wealth that have to do with the aviation sector, in term of the airline we are lacking behind, also in term of the tourism we have not tap at all, we are missing a lot, countries like UK, America, Saudi, UAE Israel, Jordan and the likes their source of revenue has to do with tourism and aviation sector, in this light Nigeria hasn’t tap into 00.1 of what it takes to take Nigeria into a country of wealth, all other country didn’t rely on oil even Saudi Arabia have abandoned the oil, they are changing all the laws for Instance women can no drive , they now entertainment, football activities and others because they realized that oil will dry but tourism is going nowhere
What is the way out and advice to the aviation and tourism ministers?
The aviation minister, I need to commend him so far, because he has read some riot information to the airline and the stakeholders and I want to believe that he would follow up, because gone are the days that they will just cancel flight and there will be not be penalty, he just made it mandatory for the airline operators that before any cancelation they must announce and of course this is to show that he is in charge , I also want to appeal to him that he should work on Nigeria Air which is most important and this will become a competitor to all other destination career that is some other airlines are sucking Nigeria go to cotonou you can get a cheaper flight but in Nigeria you pay triple of what you pay there because we have no airline of our own and nothing is working, all those foreign airline are sucking us even Kenya, and we call ourselves giant of Africa, of course it is a same on us we need to work out something as fast as possible, we can also co-partner with private airline operator like air peace and others to ensure our visibility all other the world , it will help our economy this is not about oil, it is not about Agriculture but tourism because tourism will change the economy.
What about the tourism Minister.
Without the help of the aviation sector, the tourism ministry cannot really thrive or do anything , and without the help of the presidency on issues that has to do with security, proper funding, without proper funding of the ministry, they will just be paying salary you can see the way God has used me to change Nigeria Pilgrimage commission, today it is one of the agency of government to be reckoned with because we want to ensure that every home because a JP and we are going to achieve it in Jesus name
