Nigeria’s tourist industry may have to respond to our insecurity by building an archipelago of artificial islands off the coast of Lagos State

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Remember the saying from that great French philosopher Voltaire: “No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking.”

[2] Well, Nigeria has several problems that are inter-linked and require a combined solution. We need to boost our gross domestic product (GDP), diversify our economy, combat insecurity and we have to develop our tourism industry

[3] We could solve all these problems in one go with the construction of an archipelago of about half a dozen artificial islands. We need to find out how many people visit the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, The Eiffel Tower, The Taj Mahal, Ibiza, etc annually and get each of our islands to at least match them

[4] Like Eko Atlantic City, these new islands will be built from scratch and thus planned. They will have all the basic requirements built in from the word go. That will include drainage, open spaces, power plants, railway networks, etc

[5] What the Lagos State government now needs to do is woo investors to pour money into this venture. They need to aggressively pursue the global hospitality industry, making what we saw in Dubai child’s play

[6] Security will be paramount on these islands, with police stations built at intermittent locations, CCTV cameras installed and patrols all being part of the architecture

[7] It is totally unacceptable that Nigeria does not have a globally renown holiday island like say Seychelles, Mallorca, Ibiza, Tasmania, Menorca, Crete, etc

[8] What we should have off the coast of Lagos State is about six different islands. Maybe one discotheque, one idyllic one for the elderly, one just full of tropical plants, one that is a game reserve like Kruge National Park, one for corporate meetings and one that is a mixture of all

[9] It maybe that as a medium term goal, Nigeria eyes tourism as the immediate industry to take over from crude oil as our main revenue source

[10] Can we now start thinking of some breath-taking monuments to build on these islands. I am talking of structures so grand that everyone will stop talking about the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower!