3 National Parks To Be Privatized by the Nigerian Government
In an effort to maximize the protection of biodiversity in the protected areas and make them popular tourist destinations, the Nigerian government has announced plans to partially privatize three of its national parks.
Ibrahim Goni, the Conservator General of the National Park Service, asked the private sector to support the project while accepting two Land Cruiser trucks from African Nature Investors (ANI) on Wednesday at the service’s Abuja headquarters.
The National Park Service (NPS) and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) are actively collaborating on the partial commercialization of three of our national parks, according to Goni.
“This is to tie into the worldwide goal of trying to involve NGOs in ecological preservation activities, and I hope that with the penciling down of Cross River National Park, Kainji Lake National Park, and Gashaka-Gumti National Park, the process will be sped up so that in no separated time, investors and entrepreneurs coming into this country will support the government.”
He also said that commercialization would prevent host communities from encroaching because the investors would enhance the quality of life for the locals.
He asked governors to express interest in the NPS and its private sector partners’ conservation efforts in their individual states.
Brig. Gen Olajide Laleye (retd.), Director of African Nature Investors (ANI), stated that the provision of the cars was a part of the organization’s technical assistance to the NPS.
He said that with the help of the NPS, the organization has made significant progress in its conservation efforts at the Gashaka Gumti and Okumu National Parks.
According to Laleye, ANI has been offering technical assistance to NPS since 2017 and will continue to make efforts to ensure that the biodiversity of Nigeria is protected.
