EQUADOR-NIGERIA RELATION NIGERIA THEATRE
Ambassador
Leopoldo Rovayo’s Interview -By Henrietta Ikediashi
YOUR EXCELLENCY, KINDLY INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO OUR READERS.
I
am Leopoldo Rovayo, the outgoing Ambassador of Ecuador to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a career diplomat for twenty eight years. I was previously posted to Peru and Spain
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT NIGERIA AND HER PEOPLE, AND WOULD YOU ADVISE ANYONE TO VISIT? I have been here for almost two and a half years. I recommend people to visit Nigeria and recommend Nigerian authorities to improve their facilities to visit the Country. Getting Nigerian visa could be difficult at times. Nigeria has wonderful nature; it is a great place for business to thrive. You have a lot of raw materials, oil and gas, metal, precious stones and a very nice hand craft in wood, textiles, bronze, like the famous Benin bronze. I have one in my salon at home and the most interesting experience for me is how beautiful Nigerians are. Though every country has people doing wrong but you know how to avoid them. Nigeria is worth visiting speaking from my experience. I have also been opportuned to travel by road to Kano, Lagos (on three occasions), Akwa Ibom Anaang Festival and to Kaduna State. If we improve on our roads, tourism will boost and one more thing to be done to boost tourism in Nigeria is to promote internal tourism because a country that has 180 million people has enough to be learnt and internal tourism helps people know more about their country. FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE OF SERVING YOUR COUNTRY HERE, IS NIGERIA READY FOR TOURISM? Nigeria has the natural resources to be ready for tourism but some infrastructure must be improved on. We have very nice hotels. I live in a suite that is 5 Star and can stand the ones in any part of the world with magnificent services. Nigeria has the potential but the key to improve tourism industry is to boost internal tourism; with that, people will like to travel by road from Asaba to Kano, knowledge will also be improved because if you don’t know your country how would you be interested in visiting places and events like carnival Calabar. It is not all the time you have foreigners but you could have people from your country visit such places. In Ecuador we have annual calendar prepared ahead and enables us plan. It makes tourism easy and yields a lot of financial returns to sustain the industry. Internal tourism is very important. “Internal tourism is like planting a seed and improving its growth. We have tourism conventions, investors that manage hotels can be convinced to invest, improve airline facilities and services as you don’t go to a place to have problems but to relax. Nigeria is worth it speaking from my beautiful experience. Internal tourism attracts a 28
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lot of investors. Market your tourist attractions, Ecuador succeeded in doing that and the gain is mind blowing”. Understudy other countries and how they make money. Learn how things are controlled and organised. Tell the hoteliers and service industry not to exploit tourists. Nigerians are hospitable and nice and her people are beautiful. The beauty and neatness of Calabar is amazing. There is this awareness of not littering the city and it is amazing. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT NIGERIA AS THE GIANT OF AFRICA? Nigeria deserves the title and it will be bigger because the Federal and State Governments have improved on the country’s outlook and economy. Ecuador has no Federal structure. It is very interesting how federalism works because the Federal Government makes the main policies but also the Governors have to improve more on their own States and the idea is that all these policies will push the nation up. The resources the nation has is amazing! Nigeria is the first seven places of oil and gas. You have resources that you are not using but the Government and Governors are now understanding the essence of solar power. If you check the geography of solar you will see that Nigeria could use solar. You could have solar that can work round the clock. Things are www.cometonigeria.com
