By Taiye Olayemi
The Association of Nigerian Journalists and Writers of Tourism (ANJET) has jettisoned a training session organised for travel journalists by the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) in Lagos.
This was due to NIHOTOUR’s action of replacing credible and verified industry media practitioners in the country with bloggers and part timers, masquerading as journalists, while shunning the association’s members.
The Umbrella body of private sector tourism media practitioners in the country, the (ANJET) has officially reported NIHOTOUR to the Minister of Tourism, Lola Ade-John.
This is contained in a statement issued and made public by the media practitioners’ association, in Lagos on Friday.
The statement confirmed a letter dated June 22, 2024 and signed by the ANJET President, Mr Victor Nze, in which the association berated NIHOTOUR, an agency in the Federal Ministry of Tourism, over its action of replacing credible and verified industry media practitioners in the country with what it described as ‘bloggers and part timers masquerading as journalists,’ while shunning the association’s members.
ANJET in the letter said it was compelled to draw the minister’s attention and clear the air on misrepresentations being circulated in the media over the purported training programme for journalists which had claimed that its members formed part of the participants at the event held in the Shangisha area of Lagos, from June 10 – 14, this year as organised by NIHOTOUR.
“We further categorically state that NIHOTOUR never offered ANJET any official invitation to attend the training, regardless of our position as the mouthpiece of the travel and tourism industry private sector operators in the country,” the association said.
The group noted that while it cannot dictate for NIHOTOUR the company it chooses to keep in driving and achieving its statutory mandate guiding its establishment in 1987, ‘we take exception to being lumped together with faceless, unverifiable and unidentified tourism journalists as beneficiaries of a questionable training programme organized by the agency.’
ANJET, therefore, drew the minister’s attention to the origin of the training programme which it maintains was initiated by its members and embraced by NIHOTOUR’s pioneer Director General, M.K Bashir in the 1980s as a way to boost capacity of the industry’s journalists, even as it berated the decision by the present NIHOTOUR management to debase and demean the programme’s credibility through questionable actions like what played out at the recently-concluded event.
“Over the years, successive DGs have maintained that tradition though expanding its scope of participants to even embrace media officers of some para-military organisations like the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Immigration Service and the Nigeria Customs Service, and recently the media departments of all agencies in the old Federal Ministry of Information, Culture and National Orientation.
“However, never in the history of the training programme has it been demeaned to the level of gathering impersonators and parading them as travel and tourism journalists as it happened during the last NIHOTOUR training programme in Lagos.
“Incidentally, even last year’s edition of the same programme organised by NIHOTOUR in Abuja was not without controversies.
“The management of the agency has continued to deal directly with third party interests, rather than relate with the ANJET leadership in all its engagement,” the group said.
According to ANJET, there is now palpable worry that ‘this trend embraced by NIHOTOUR of assembling persons without credibility and reputation to create the impression of training industry journalists, may be a conduit pipe for retiring already budgeted government funds.
’Continuing, the association said it stands to be ‘corrected that the questionable persons who were paraded and presented with certificates at the training by NIHOTOUR are not credible industry journalists, but bloggers and part timers. And we refuse to be associated with this sham of an event.
’The statement informed the minister that ANJET remains the only media practitioners body recognised and affiliated to the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN), the biggest private sector operators forum in the country, as it further asserted that ‘Any gathering purporting to be for industry journalists but excludes our members has to be interrogated for authenticity.
“To buttress our position, the Honorable Minister after holding an interactive meeting with our association at the Radio House in Ikoyi, Lagos, last April, moved to enlist the agreements reached with the journalists as a major achievement recorded in your first year in office.
“Furthermore, ANJET was also recognised with a nomination to serve in the Marketing & Communications Sub Committee for the National Tourism Policy Review, in April, last year,” it stated in the letter.
The group, therefore, called on the minister to ‘call the Director General of NIHOTOUR, Nura Sani Kangiwa to order over his unbecoming action of continuously embarrassing ANJET and its members with inhuman offers.
“We also request the Honorable Minister to probe circumstances surrounding that training programme for industry journalists organised by NIHOTOUR. While the actual programme of activities was designed as a three-day event with attendees provided for as live-in hotel guests, the reality is that participants reportedly arrived and departed the event’s venue from their homes.
“The decision by NIHOTOUR to persist with ignoring ANJET is a direct affront to the Honorable Minister who has devoted immense time and efforts towards courting the media practitioners’ body since her assumption of office, last year.
“We strongly believe that NIHOTOUR has debased and demeaned its highly regarded certificates with this sham of a programme,” the group wrote.
The protest letter to the minister also berated NIHOTOUR for preferring third party interest parties in official communications between it and the ANJET leadership, which the latter described as ‘unprofessional and capable of fanning distrust and harmony.’
