Away with the exotic Oriental disease codenamed Covid-19(Coronavirus). Cast aside the ineptitude of the Nigerian government that is asconfused as a fish cast ashore. Welcome to Asaba, the 136-year-old city oncethe capital of Southern Nigeria Protectorate. Now the capital of Delta State.
Bring on the legendary pounded yam served with Banga soup(Palm kernel soup) garnished with an assortment of bush meat and dried catfish.Take a seat at the well-manicured, bamboo-spangled Giddy’s Place on a warmafternoon and let them treat you to the real concept of hospitality. Delta isNigeria’s treasure trove of good food. Sea food, bush meat including the scalyPangolin (this breed has no virus – SARS or Corona).
Relax as they serve you freshly tapped palm wine or if youwish, fresh fruit juice squashed from a combination of pineapple, orange and deepgreen-back watermelon. Then experience the sensation of being home away fromhome. Sometimes, Delta offers you more than the ideal. It makes being away morecomfy, and more rewarding than being home especially if you’re a gourmet.
Delta is truly the home of good food served in the safestpart of Nigeria. And Asaba embodies this top of the loop hospitality. The oldcity but only 29 years old as Delta State capital has in recent years continuedto attract people from different parts of the country and even the world. An activenight life, rehabilitation and construction of more roads by the Ifeanyi Okowagovernment are a few of the emblems making Asaba the preferred destination ofNigerians from every part of the country.
In the last five years, many hotels, night clubs, taverns,restaurants among other hospitality emblems have sprouted in Asaba. The nowrichly asphalted network of roads innervating the city and adjoining towns havecontributed to making the city the new melting pot of activities. Asaba sits onthe bank of the River Niger, accessed via land and water. She’s home to allNigerians: Peaceful, serene and void of the primitive rowdiness that barbs thesouls of most Nigerian cities.
Upon assumption of office in 2015, Governor Okowa,apparently irked by the lowly urban status of Asaba vowed to embark on amakeover that would lift the aesthetics and grandeur of the capital city. Hecreated the Delta State Capital Territory Development Agency (DSCTDA). Thisagency is strategic. It indexes the mindset of Okowa. Well over a century ago,Asaba was the capital of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate. She was home to thethen prestigious Royal Niger Company (which morphed to UAC). Asaba was aninternational trade centre, hosting white men who crossed seas and rivers totrade in Nigeria. She was the epicentre of the bloody Nigerian civil war. Yes,Asaba was the venue of that carefully choreographed pogrom in which theNigerian troop tricked the natives and lured them to the valley of death. Asabastill bears the scars of this mindless killing of the innocents. And you wouldreason that with her history as a capital of a Protectorate and later statecapital, Asaba would be glowing in urban splendour. Wrong! Asaba was left tolapse into a glorified town. Successive military governments since 1991 whenDelta was created merely used Asaba as an address, nothing more. Starved ofdevelopment, shorn of rehabilitation, Asaba has barely managed to drag itselfon the hallway of modernity. Perhaps, this was what got Okowa’s attention, andprompted his determination to turn the ancient home of Nnebisi (reputed to bethe founder of Asaba) into a befitting capital city.
Asaba could be likened to a 136-year-old woman, abandoned byher children. Shorn of any shade of adorable beauty, weather-beaten andage-battered. An old woman scorned and abused; stripped of her glory andmajesty, plucked of her pride and left to the vicious vagaries of time and theelements. Abandoned by the bank of the Niger River, Asaba was a picturesquemotif of a grand old woman cast away by her people. But Okowa has transformedAsaba into a 29-year-old lady of ravishing beauty. The burrows and wrinklesthat once contorted her face are draped in floral beauty. Asaba smiles again. Thehunching old lady is now a beauty to behold; an attractive lady garbed in flowingall green gown. She’s once the abandoned old lady, now suitors abound. Theycome in the form of investors and tourists from Onitsha, Owerri, Enugu, Warri,Benin, Lagos and from every clime. They come to savour the beauty of the queen,the exquisiteness of the lady in green. These days, approach Asaba from anypoint and the lady glows in entrancing elegance. Her curvature and girlish contoursonce lost are now restored. And truly suitors abound.
The once deserted city now has her groove back. The musicnow plays loud and clear. The jukebox stays silent no more. The day breaks withpromise. The nights unfurl with endless possibilities. The suitors are adequately catered for by thevarious categories of night clubs and lounges. Recently, my friends chose thehighbrowRedson Lounge for our meeting. And it turned out a pleasurable nocturnal experience.Redson is reputed to be the best in town and strictly for the upper-class too. Itshows in the pristine service, the culture of rectitude and respect even fromamong the security staff. Asaba night life also swings at Club Cocoon, Press Play Lounge, Klique Lounge among others. The citynow has a soul.
And the suitors are here. They come as investors in thestate’s growing hospitality industry, the Kwale Industrial Park, the boomingproperty market and other ventures. For a state noted for sporting distinction,the Stephen Keshi International Stadium is now the mecca of sporting activitiesincluding international sporting festivals. The stadium is one of the enduringtotems of development in Asaba. It has its own peculiar history of abandonmentand negligence before Okowa turned it from glum to glory. And now, it’s gameon.
The remodeling of Asaba into a truly modern capital city hascreated a growing economy in tourism. New hotels spring forth to fill the gap.With all her endowment, Nigeria is yet to fully tap into the global naycontinental tourism market.
Research shows thatin 2018 alone, travel and tourism contributed $194.2 billion to Africa’seconomy, representing 8.5% of the continent’s GDP. In terms of jobs, the sectorcreated 24.3 million jobs, or 6.7% of total employment. Further breakdown ofthe statistics shows that 71% of tourism spend across Africa for that year wasleisure-driven while 29% was for business.
Top of the cream of tourists’ destinations in Africa are indescending order: Mauritius, South Africa, Seychelles, Morocco, Namibia, Kenya,Tunisia. Nigeria is not among the top destination yet she is far more endowedthan some of these top seven. There is opportunity here for investment fortunehunters. This is the sense in which Okowa’s makeover of Asaba bears all themarks of strategic thinking.
When the dust of Covid-19 fades away and normalcy returns inhuman movement and traffic across the world, Asaba will now and in the comingyears claw her foot into the African tourism pie. It’s only a matter of time.
