Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has emphasized how strategic communication was deployed during his tenure to promote Nigeria’s culture and tourism, repositioning these sectors as key drivers of national development.
Mohammed made the remarks on Wednesday while donating copies of his book, Headlines & Soundbites: Media Moments that Defined an Administration, to the University of Ilorin in Kwara State.
He explained that the Ministry deliberately leveraged communication to place Nigeria’s cultural heritage and tourism potential at the forefront of both national and international discourse.
Routine official engagements, he said, were transformed into high-impact media events by attending major festivals and touring key tourist destinations with teams of journalists, generating sustained visibility for Nigeria’s cultural assets.
According to Alhaji Mohammed, this strategy amplified festivals such as the Argungu International Fishing Festival, the Osun-Osogbo Festival, and the Calabar Carnival, turning them into platforms for economic promotion, national pride and global storytelling.
The former Minister noted that visits to cultural and tourism sites, including the Owu Waterfalls in Kwara State, as well as institutions like the National Theatre, Lagos, and the National Museum, Onikan, were carefully curated to showcase Nigeria’s tourism potential.
He added that the introduction of the National Festival Calendar brought structure and predictability to cultural events, making them more attractive to tourists and investors.
At the international level, Alhaji Mohammed highlighted Nigeria’s participation in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which projected the country’s culture to a global audience and reinforced the message that Nigeria’s true wealth lies in its people, traditions and creativity.
“These initiatives demonstrate how purposeful and consistent communication can transform culture into a powerful instrument for economic diversification and national identity,” he said.
He said he wrote Headlines and Soundbites to preserve an accurate historical record and provide context often missing from public discourse, emphasizing that no government succeeds without effective communication and no history is complete until it is told by those who lived it.
He thanked the authorities of the University of Ilorin for accepting the books and expressed hope that the book would enrich scholarship and strengthen critical thinking among students.
No government will succeed without effective communication – Lai Mohammed
No government will succeed without effective communication – Lai Mohammed
