Few days ago, I was worried about some pot holes on the road network within the expansive premises of the widely acclaimed Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja that I had to raise alarm, calling for urgent facelift of the infrastructural facilities. I also expressed concern regarding standard of services provided daily to clients by this hotel that is seen as one of the most expensive places to visit.

Immediately the online version of the letter to the editor was published severally including the photographs depicting the bad portions of road inside the hotel premises, various reactions trailed it even as the management of the hotel immediately established contact with me to offer their own side of the story in strong defence of the tourism institution that has made a mark as the number one choice of most foreign visitors to the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

As a professionally trained journalist of over two decades of formidable experiences with investigative background, I decided to honor the invitation extended to me by the top managerial team because I believe in transparency, objective journalism and balance of facts and figures.

These traits of journalism excellence seem to be seriously lacking in the practice of modern-day ‘citizen journalism’ whereby untrained minds with access to the social media have misused these beautiful opportunities and advances in science/technology to market their warped ideas without regard to the time- tested and time -honored values of objectivity and the worship of what I may call the ‘goddess of truth’.

At the end of two of the many deliberations I had with the Transcorp Hilton management, I came out with the impression that they indeed have extensive plans to totally rehabilitate the facilities in the hotel to keep pace with growing expectation of global best practices by their esteemed clients and other observers of beauty and nature such as investigative writers.

The Public Relations Unit of the hotel further disclosed that the princely sum of $200 million USD has been voted and budgeted for the comprehensive maintenance and upgrading of virtually all the facilities in the hotel to satisfy the highest aesthetic demands of their clients who are mostly global travelers.

Also, Transcorp Hilton Abuja is billed to host the world next year for the 2014 World Economic Forum (WEF). Both the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Transcorp Hilton, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo, a thoroughbred gentleman, and the Recreation/Public Relations Manager, Mr. Shola Adeyemo, a man with a deep friendly disposition, assured that the management and staff of Transcorp Hilton Abuja are ready and competently trained, motivated and willing to host the world next year. For now, I am prepared to give them the benefit of doubt given the fact that these are persons of high intellectual and managerial pedigrees.

The great news that Nigeria is to host the 24th edition of the World Economic Forum next year was announced by no less a great nationalist in the person of the former Managing Director of the World Bank and Nigeria’s current Finance Minister, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, at the venue of the recent World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, South Africa.

Okonjo-Iweala, who is also the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, thanked the WEF for choosing Nigeria as the next host, expressing the readiness of the country to make the next edition as exciting as possible. She said that the choice of Nigeria was appropriate given its position and huge economic potential.

Her words: “I think we epitomise a lot of things about Africa. We have the excitement, the passion, the entrepreneurship, the private sector drive and the glow for the future. But we also epitomise all of the difficult challenges of the continent such as infrastructure deficit, governance issues, corruption and transparency.”

A combination of these opportunities and challenges in one country makes Nigeria the most exciting place to be on the continent, according to Okonjo-Iweala. She said that the future of Africa was bright, judging by the commitment and passion demonstrated by participants in the forum, especially the Young Global Leaders, who represented the youths of the continent.

On his part, the Director General of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Mr. Frank Nweke Jnr., said that Nigeria was excited to be the host of the next WEF. He said that President Goodluck Jonathan had already mandated the team to organise a successful forum.

After my various informal meetings with the top management of Transcorp Hilton, I also took some few days to interact with different foreign visitors and Nigerians on what their opinions are regarding the fact that Nigeria is billed to host that global economic parley. Most of them were confident that indeed Transcorp Hilton in Abuja and Nigeria as the host nation would deliver one of the best events to the world next year.

I also observed that some of the pot holes were already being filled up. This has further increased my belief in the ability of Ozigbo and his team to live up to expectation, not only in maintaining the high standards for which Hilton hotels are known globally but also in successfully hosting the next World Economic Forum.

•Onwubiko, Head, Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), blogs at www.huriwa.org;www.huriwablogspot.com

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