Develop Taraba Gashaka-Gumti Reserve to Avoid Another Sambisa, FG Told




Develop Taraba Gashaka-Gumti Reserve to Avoid Another Sambisa, FG Told

The federal government has been tasked to urgently develop Gashaka-Gumti Games Reserves located in Taraba State to avoid it being used for terrorism as was the case with Sambisa forest.

Gashaka-Gumti Games Reserves, which is one of the National Parks being managed by the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), is the largest park in West Africa covering a large expanse of land from Taraba to Adamawa States.

Making the call in a statement made available to journalists in Jalingo on Tuesday, Senior Special Assistant to Governor Darius Ishaku on Public Affairs, Mr. Emmanuel Bello, said after the recapture of Sambisa forest from Boko Haram terrorists, the federal government should concentrate it efforts to ensure other forests of Sambisa's magnitude are developed to their full potential to prevent a re-occurrence.

Bello, who described the Gashaka-Gumti park as a lost treasure, said if not fully developed, it may become another breeding ground for the type of atrocity that took place in Sambisa forest occasioned by its total neglect.

"After the capture of Sambisa forest, one of the things the federal government must ask itself is how that forest became a breeding ground for the type of atrocity that reportedly went on there. Ordinarily, Sambisa should have been a paradise on earth with its potential for tourism and scientific researches. Today, the name, Sambisa, may forever be associated with negativity. I call on the federal government to be proactive about tourism"

Speaking further, Bello, who was twice Commissioner for Information in Taraba State, said: "We may never know, but if Sambisa forest was put to good use, who knows, maybe we would have been spared all the horrors. Please, let this not become the fate of another potential paradise called Gashaka-Gumpti."

Insisting that Gashaka Gumti must not be allowed to waste, he noted that the state government is doing its best to develop the park just as he enjoined the federal government to shift its focus to the development of tourism industry in the state.

To further boost and harness the tourism potential of the state, Bello noted that Ishaku has opened up the air space to make the state more accessible to tourists just as he emphasised the governor's efforts at engendering peace across the state which according to him, is very strategic for the development of tourism.

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