Newsletter No. 869
News-Analysis
January 6, 2008

 

JAPAN TO BUILD A TOURIST RESORT IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

This Day, a newspaper based in Lagos, has reported that on the 2nd, Governor Namadi Sambo of Kaduna State, Nigeria, announced that his state government had concluded an agreement with the Japanese government to jointly build a US$14 million tourist resort. The name of the project is the Kagoro Hills Holiday Resort.

We don’t know anything about how this project came into being, but the current report says that the Afan Festival, held annually, is one of the main local attractions. It also appears that upgrades to the local transportation network and the local university are also being contemplated.

Not knowing much about Nigeria myself, I asked John Edward Philips (Shingetsu Member No. 1) of Hirosaki University what he made of this report, and what he knows about Kaduna State, where this project is being established. Here was his very substantial response:

Kaduna is a predominantly Muslim state, but with a large Christian minority in the south. Kaduna state is considered a swing state in Nigerian politics, with the Muslim north tending to vote for the left, and the old city of Zaria in the north of the state is the site of a national university with a radical reputation. Islamic socialists, Shi'ites, and other dissident movements have always been strong there.

If Kaduna state is a swing state in Nigeria, the minority groups of southern Nigeria are the hinge of the swing. From the governor's point of view, this is probably a way to shore up his support in a critical area. The governor is from the ruling PDP, which certainly wants to hold onto votes in this important area. Perhaps the most significant paragraph in the article is the following:

"Senate President David Mark, represented by Vice Chairman, Senate Service Committee, Senator Suleiman Adokwe, at the occasion, said state and local government creation are top on the constitutional review agenda of the national assembly and promised the people that the proposed Federal School of Statistics to be sited in the area, would be pursue to a logical conclusion."

The demand for new states is one of the most popular political issues in Nigeria. Local areas want autonomy, and tend to vote for politicians who offer to give them autonomy. No new states have ever been created by politicians since the Midwest Region was created in the first republic, though, partly because the military have tied their hands. When the military come to power they often, loudly and popularly, create new states, quietly taking powers away from the states and moving them to the federal government, Whether the civilians will be able to create new states remains to be seen, but the situating of the Federal School of Statistics in a minority area suggests that they are serious about it.

What the Japanese are up to here I have no idea.

This is not to denigrate the tourism potential of the area. The hilly regions of southern Kaduna are beautiful, and have not only interesting cultures but significant wildlife. I would love to go there again myself, I recommend it to anyone, even though the resort has yet to be built.