The thrill of the open highways, the excitement of exploring the unknown and the utter happiness of doing what you love to do every day. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? That feeling is far from new for Toke, the young and audacious woman who travelled the 36 Nigerian states, with ongoing plans to touch base at the 778 local governments, including the federal capital territory.
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, many travellers around the world have had to cancel or compromise travel plans; but if you have the strength of Fatoki Omotoke aka Alarinka of Africa you know that you can do anything you put your mind to.
We spoke to her on what it means to have travelled round the 36 states in Nigeria, and her passion for tourism and promoting culture and heritage.
MoreBranches: What motivated you to do this?
Toke: When I started, I just wanted to travel and see what nature has to offer. As I travelled I got exposed to gems that this country has. I lived in Lagos for a very long time and rarely travelled except to school that took me out of Lagos. I never travelled for adventure or to just take time out and see the beauty fo the country. We need promote tourism in our country aggressively, I didn’t know we had so much to offer. We have waterfalls, hills, lakes, everything is here! The culture, you will discover so much that is hidden in plain sight or effortlessness in trying. I was glad I could attain such feat and also bring the notice of people, especially young people to what we’re missing out of.
What are your important takeouts from travelling Nigeria?
Toke: one key thing is to never judge a place you have never been before. Don’t judge the people until you experience them and do not judge a culture until you have tasted of it. We need to search deeper, go to places, see things for ourselves. As an internet generation, we’ve leverage so we shouldn’t be making the same mistakes of others. There is so much beauty in the mundane and the diversity of cultures, food, languages, and even fashion that we do not get to see or experience in the media.
I plan to explore the world at large, go beyond Nigeria and see other beautiful countries in Africa. “I want to do more and be the voice for change, this is why I plan to visit all the 778 local government in Nigeria, I have figured that a lot of these people lack basic necessities, which keeps me pondering on what we can do to help. How can we give back to these beautiful people every time we visit?”
Through this I want people to learn more about our heritage and cultures, growing up, we hardly visited the the village, because our parents told us there was an ancestral witch there to kill us. LOL. A lot of us do not know why we are the way we are, talk less of our origin.
I had so many good moments with people, there are very genuine and kind people in Nigeria. People opened their homes to me, offered me food and took me around for nothing in return.
What impact do you aim to have on people and our community?
I want to impact people by opening their eyes and minds to our rich history and diversity. I want to tell the African story by bringing positive change to the tourism industries and most importantly, document these things for future generations.
While travelling, I observed the absence of charitable initiatives or groups in many local governments. Almost like these people were shut out of the word and left to figure it out theirselves. I want my journey through these regions to also mean much more for these people. To bring about change and a shift.
Did you encounter any problems or bad experiences during your trip?
Sometimes I had fund issues, all of my travels were self-funded. Sometimes there was no access to these attractions as there is no proper structure or authorities set for most of the tourist attractions in the country especially in the South West. The language barrier was also a problem sometimes, Nigeria is a country with so many languages and tribes.
Our tourism lacks maintenance, which means we have so much. We pay little or no attention to them. The ones that are well coordinated are mostly privately owned with individual investments”. We need to be intentional about our tourism and the content we put out there. We have improved and I am sure it would get better.
Thank you for talking to us Toke.
Thank you for having me, it is a pleasure.
Fatoki Omotoke completed her journey around Nigeria on the 8th of March, 2020 and we are just as motivated to get on the road too. Connect with Toke and see the world through her eyes on Instagram.
