By Stanley Onyekwere
In furtherance to his quest to make Abuja one of the world’s tourism hub, the FCT Minister, Barrister Nyesom Wike, has declared readiness to pave way for the Daewoo Engineering & Construction (E&C), a South Korean company to invest in the sector, by constructing a five-star hotel in the nation’s capital city, to compete with other luxury hotels.
He made this point when the Chairman, Daewoo E&C, Jung Won-ju, paid a courtesy visit to the office of the Minister, in company of the Managing Director, Daewoo E&C Nigeria operations, Taewon Jung.
Wike, who noted that the relationship between the Republic of South Korea and Nigeria, said his interest as Minister, was to ensure the development of Abuja, and to make it an attractive tourist centre, adding that it was important to concretise discussions on development.
“We are talking about FCT. One of the best things you can do is tourism. And in that case, the only star hotel we can talk about here is Transcorp Hilton. So, there is no competition, nothing.
“ Like I said, it is important that we discuss, and people know that something will come out of that discussion. For me as the FCT Minister, my interest is to develop Abuja, to make it more attractive as a tourist centre.
“So, if you say that ‘okay, we want to invest in tourism, we want to build a five-star hotel, what role can you play’? We can say look, to assure you we are ready, we are not going to give you land to sell or whatever, we will give you land.
“What expanse of land do you need? And then we will ask you, how many years do you think you will be able to develop this five-star hotel? So, these are the things we like to do”, he said.
Wike added that he would liaise with the Korean Ambassador, to schedule a visit to the country and the construction company, to finalise details and “finetune” the project for immediate action, while assuring the Chairman that there would be no impediments to the project.
He adds: “All those will be taken care of by us. Everything internal; the land, the approvals, everything, you can be sure the moment we sign the memorandum of understanding, and we agree, we will hand it over to you. Any impediment is from you, no impediment will come from us.
“We are also going to write to you so that we can concretise. We will make sure that before the end of the year, we should be able to visit Korea, particularly Daewoo.
“ So, we will write the Ambassador of Korea to let him know, and then write to you as the Managing Director, so we will be able to finetune it. That’s the way I will be happy that there is something we can take home.”
Responding, the Chairman, Won-Ju thanked the Minister for the warm reception, adding that he would ensure that challenges between both countries are promptly addressed, in order to expedite actions on the partnership between Daewoo and the FCT.
He said: “Even though there will be a lot of challenges for doing business between you and us, somehow, we are ready to overcome every challenge, and our MD of Nigeria here, will fully support the procedure to be realised as soon as possible.
“We are willing to comply with your demands and your guidance.”
