The Nigerian Hotel and Catering Institute (NHCI) has strongly condemned what it described as the unprofessional conduct of the National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) over the arrest of hotel personnel and disruption of operations in Lagos recently.
NHCI said the action, which was allegedly in pursuit of the NIHOTOUR Act of 2022 concerning the registration of hotels and operators, was illegal and contravened the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution, the 2013 Supreme Court judgment on the matter, and a recent ruling by a Lagos Magistrate Court in the case instituted by the Hotel Owners and Managers Association of Lagos (HOMAL) challenging the NIHOTOUR Act.
It will be recalled that a NIHOTOUR compliance team, accompanied by a truckload of uniformed and plain-clothed police officers, stormed several hotels in Lagos, arresting staff members over alleged non-compliance with registration requirements.
Those arrested were taken to NIHOTOUR’s Zonal Campus in Mushin and later released after payments were extracted from some, while others were compelled to sign promissory notes.
In one of the incidents, a hotel staff member was reportedly assaulted, sustaining serious injuries to one of his eyes and is currently receiving treatment at an undisclosed medical facility in Lagos.
Reacting to the development in a press statement titled “Re: Press Release on the Purported Implementation of NIHOTOUR’s Act 2022”, NHCI President and Chairman of Council, Victor Ola Kayode, described the action as highly unprofessional and a misuse of state power.
“We, as a professional body, view these actions as highly unprofessional for an organisation that purports to regulate professional practice in the hospitality and tourism industry in Nigeria,” Kayode said.
“It is even more inappropriate for such a body to use the instrumentality of government to coerce legitimate private operators, especially in light of a subsisting Supreme Court judgment on the matter from 2013.”
He noted that the huge sums of money being demanded by NIHOTOUR are unjustifiable, given that the agency neither trains nor recruits personnel for hotels.
He further described the use of police force to harass, intimidate, brutalize, and illegally arrest industry personnel as crude, exploitative, and completely unbecoming of a professional regulatory body.
“These actions, by all standards of professional practice, are absurd and must not be allowed to continue. This is certainly not the intent of the disputed NIHOTOUR Act of 2022, nor does it align with the spirit of the Nigerian Constitution,” the statement read.
NHCI, which described itself as the foremost professional body in the sector, said the actions of NIHOTOUR undermine the core values of hospitality and tourism and must be stopped immediately.
The Institute called on the Inspector General of Police to halt the deployment of police officers for such controversial operations. It also appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, through the Attorney General of the Federation, to call the Director General of NIHOTOUR, Dr. Abisoye Fagade, to order.
“It is our civilised expectation that the management of NIHOTOUR will immediately tender an unreserved apology to the operators whose staff were clandestinely arrested and detained—not in a police station, but in a campus of a training institute,” NHCI said.
The body warned that failure to address the matter promptly could lead to a breakdown of law and order in the industry and discourage foreign investors interested in Nigeria’s tourism and hospitality sector—contrary to the goals of the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
