VZCZCXRO0312
PP RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHUJA #1593/01 1771049
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 261049Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY ABUJA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6214
INFO RUEHOS/AMCONSUL LAGOS 4450
RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 001593 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS TO USTR 
TREASURY FOR DPETERS 
USDOC FOR 3317/ITA/OA/KBURRESS 
USDOC FOR 3130/USFC/OIO/ANESA/DHARRIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON SENV EAID EIND PGOV NI CM
SUBJECT: ECONOMIC LIFE BUDS IN NIGERIA'S CROSS RIVER STATE 
 
REF:  ABUJA 1138 
 
¶1. Summary: Economic officer and REO visited Cross River 
State to examine its economic infrastructure and potential 
for ecotourism.  Officers had a wide range of meetings with 
local figures, including Cross River Governor Donald Duke. 
Duke emphasized his plans to develop the state's 
agricultural and tourism sectors.  His goal is for Cross 
River State by 2010 to be Africa's No. 1 tourism 
destination.  Duke termed the Tinapa Business Resort, a $300 
million project now under construction outside Calabar, the 
state's "crown jewel."  Tinapa will feature an impressive 
variety of attractions and is an unusual example of private- 
sector activity in Nigeria.  Duke was noncommittal about his 
political future following the end of his second term, after 
which is he not allowed to run again.  End summary. 
 
¶2. Economic officer and regional environmental officer (REO) 
visited Cross River State, on Nigeria's eastern border with 
Cameroon, to examine its economic infrastructure and 
potential for ecotourism.  Officers had a wide range of 
meetings with local figures, including Cross River Governor 
Donald Duke, state officials, and non-government 
organization environmentalists. 
 
Cross River governor a big tourism booster 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶3. Governor Duke said Cross River's main challenge is its 
limited availability of land, because Cross River National 
Park occupies about one-third of the state.  Duke emphasized 
developing the state's agricultural and tourism sectors, in 
which Cross River had a comparative advantage.  Agriculture 
was a "longer-term function" on Duke's agenda.  Local 
officials and Cross River environmentalists said Duke has 
increased his focus on tourism, at the expense of 
agriculture, probably because he can promote tourism more 
quickly and inexpensively. 
 
Cross River to be West Africa's No. 1 tourism destination? 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
¶4. Duke said his goal is for Nigeria, and specifically Cross 
River State, by 2010 to be Africa's No. 1 tourism 
destination.  At a minimum, the state should overtake Ghana 
as West Africa's primary travel destination.  Cross River 
was at the end of West Africa and where Central Africa 
began.  Calabar had a rich history, including colonial 
architecture and its slavery museum, which Duke expected to 
appeal to American tourists.  Calabar was a major trading 
port in the West African slave trade. 
 
¶5. Duke termed as the state's "crown jewel" the Tinapa 
Business Resort, now under construction and located 5 miles 
north of the state capital of Calabar.  Tinapa promotes 
itself on CNN International television as "Africa's Premier 
Business Resort," though its completion is still a year off. 
The shopping complex will target the roughly 500,000 
expatriates living and working in Nigeria, wealthy Africans, 
and Nigeria's upper class, who currently spend much of their 
disposable income abroad.  Duke said Africans seeking 
shopping and leisure no longer will need to fly to Dubai. 
Prices for luxury goods sold at Tinapa would be lower than 
in Paris, he claimed. 
 
¶6. The governor said 2,500 people worked on the Tinapa 
project and this figure would rise to 4,000.  He visited the 
construction site three times a week and sent his 
representative there each work day.  Construction was 
expected to finish by the end of March 2007.  Tinapa was a 
$300 million project, with 21.5 billion naira (about $168 
million) so far invested in the project.  All the capital 
was Nigerian, and Cross River State would bear the cost of 
Tinapa's infrastructure.  (Comment:  A broad range of 
persons in Calabar instead insisted that former Liberian 
President Charles Taylor and Taylor family members were 
major investors in the Tinapa project.  End comment.) 
 
Tinapa Resort to offer many delights 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶7. Tinapa, which located on a manmade inlet leading off the 
Calabar River, will feature 4,000 parking spaces, and four 
shopping and restaurant emporiums of 10,000 square meters 
each.  The complex will have a large hotel, a monorail, a 
 
ABUJA 00001593  002 OF 002 
 
 
multiplex movie theater, and a water park.  Additional 
attractions would be added during its second and third 
phases.  Duke was working to entice Nigeria's film industry 
("Nollywood"), which produced 1,500 movies annually, to move 
to Tinapa.  Tinapa would include a "Cinema City" film- 
production facility. 
 
Economic privileges and the Calabar Free Trade Zone 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶8. Tinapa is contiguous to the Calabar Free Trade Zone, 
established in 1992 to help develop export-oriented 
manufacturing industries in the non-oil sector.  The 
Government of Nigeria (GON) granted investors in the Tinapa 
project "special-purpose-vehicle" status, exempting them 
from all federal, state, and local-government taxes, freedom 
from foreign-exchange regulations, from import or export 
licenses, and from limits on foreign managers and foreign 
skilled workers.  The GON permitted approved enterprises to 
import, free of duty, capital goods, consumer goods, raw 
materials, and other components.  (Comment: This is unusual 
freedom to operate in Nigeria, where business is heavily and 
intrusively regulated.  End comment.) 
 
¶9. Duke was noncommittal about his political future 
following the end of his second term in 2007, after which he 
is not allowed to run again for governor.  He would say 
only, "It is important to prepare one's successor." 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶10. Governor Duke spends money on state projects even in 
parts of Cross River that opposed him politically, according 
to environmental contacts.  This relatively nonpartisan 
spending is unusual in Nigeria.  Duke appears to be more 
serious than most of his Nigerian gubernatorial 
contemporaries about the need for economic development to 
benefit constituents - although this growth sometimes occurs 
in ways that concern foreign environmentalists. Private 
enterprise, in the form of small businesses and shops, 
appeared more prevalent and healthy in Calabar than in many 
other Nigerian cities.  Duke chose wisely in pursuing 
agriculture and tourism, although it remains to be seen what 
sustainable results these choices will produce. 
 
¶11. If Duke and his successors succeed in pushing Calabar 
and Cross River as tourist destinations, they may have to 
deemphasize the association with Nigeria and promote them as 
independent destinations and West Africa's gateway to 
Central Africa.  If the Tinapa project lives up to its hype, 
the resort will be impressive in the Nigerian national 
context, where the non-oil, private-sector economy remains 
seriously underdeveloped.  Duke's goals for Tinapa are 
ambitious.  No city in Nigeria except Lagos has such 
entertainment facilities, and Lagos's are not concentrated 
in one place.  For Calabar to open a movie theater would be 
impressive, especially if the city does so before Abuja and 
its roughly 7.5 million inhabitants receive their first 
movie theater.  Currently, Nigeria's approximately 130 
million people enjoy only three modern movie theaters - all 
in Lagos. 
FUREY