Paradise lost if we don't act

A quick Google search will show you that the world's most visited countries are also the same countries were hardest hit by Covid-19 in the last two years.

Yet another site tells us the most visited places include in that order South Island in New Zealand, Paris, Bora Bora in the French Polynesia, Maui-in Peru, Tahiti Islands, London with its historical heritage, Rome and finally Phuket in Southern Asia.

If you are a conspiracy theorist you will probably roll your eyes and say it is not possible that such beautiful places in Africa including the Table Top Mountains in South Africa, our very own Paradise Island, Zanzibar and the Moosi O’Tunya in Zambia /Zimbabwe border do not feature.

Your argument would be one that traditional conspiracy theorists and “ours is better than yours” believer love to put forward because it is lazy.

It goes along the line that since Google belongs to them hence they must make us look bad for them to look good.

If, however, you torture the data a little more you will discover that top tourist destinations become so due to many factors which include but are not limited to culture, architecture, infrastructure, events, gastronomy, landscape and shopping.

Such destinations attract millions of tourists and tourists are a cash economy that helps creates employment wherever tourists go. The latest figures shows tourism brought more than $1 billion to Tanzania in 2019.

With the tourism destinations Tanzania has besides pristine Zanzibari beeches, the country also prides in Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti wildlife plains home to the big five.

Yet incidents like the one which is said to have occurred in Zanzibar brings us back to the earth as to why our tourism potential remains but a potential. What is worse, that there are those among us, and they are not few, who are willing to defend the indefensible under the guise of nationality. It is definitely indefensible.

All the places in the world where tourists visit in large numbers security is at the top of the list. To imagine waking up deep in the night to find an unknown person in one’s room and bed for that matter is to creepy for me.

Whatever cap we want to wear, that of a brother, a parent, a relative, an adult of sound mind no one should ever defend the intrusion into the privacy of anyone’s room let alone the attempted rape of an individual.

Not even under the guise that they are vulnerable because they are travelling alone.

The facts are still out there but the alleged incident and worse, the behaviour of Police in Nungwi brings back memories of a case we witnessed when Police in Dar es Salaam shook down a non-Tanzanian whose alleged crime was not paying a lady of the night the demanded dollars for their dalliance.

In that case years ago the police at a police station we shall leave unnamed were enthusiastic about the man paying demanded dollars and threatened to throw the man in cells and possibly cause him to be deported.

Let us grant it to East Africa’s police save for Rwanda. This could happen anywhere in Mombasa, Kampala or even Juba. They all tend to form Kangaroo courts when incidents are reported that pit locals against non-citizens. It is the easiest way to extort bribes from Non-Citizens and its works swimmingly.

Yet for all the support to the lack of professionalism by local police allegedly because “Nigerians are always intruding to other countries, I am amazed that we seem to have concluded that the victim is merely interested in spoiling the name of our pristine island.

Nationalists supporting this despicable act should be ashamed of themselves. They are the same people who live in cuckoo’s land that Tanzania is so rich that it does not need development partners nor does it need pesky tourists and back packers.

They are the people who think pristine beaches are enough and any tourist with over $1,000 to spend should know that with our poverty the tourist’s money is ours to take. The Zanzibar government must do all it can that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to book.

Call the Nigerian lady and compensate her plus give her royal treatment. Or else, the damage has been done.