Business
‘We train our contestants to become change ambassadors’ – CEO Miss Tourism Nigeria, San Tiago
Behind every successful project, there’s is someone behind it.
Miss Tourism Nigeria is no doubt one of the biggest project in Nigeria over the years.
The producer, San Tiago, who is also behind Mr Universe Nigeria, Miss Fashion Nigeria, in an interview with Sahara Weekly revealed The juicy benefits involved in the upcoming Miss Tourism Nigeria 2016 which is taking place on Saturday, July 9, 2016 at the prestigious Ruby Gardens, Lekki, Lagos.
Excerpts:
Q – My name is Osho oluwatosin, can we meet you?
R – My name is San tiago Roberts. I’m the CEO of Miss Tourism Nigeria, Mr Universe Nigeria and Miss Fashion Nigeria
Q – What’s the brain behind Miss tourism Nigeria?
R – We’ll, Miss tourism is about promoting Nigeria’s tourism both in Nigeria and accross the world. We want to be able to beautify our tourism attractions in a way that people can take out of their time to want to come to Nigeria to see how beautiful Nigeria is and also to encourage investment into the sector. So centrally, we can say that miss tourism Nigeria is all about promoting tourism in Nigeria and on the international platform in order to make Nigeria a tourist nation.
Q – When did you start this event?
R – Miss tourism Nigeria for us started about 5-years ago. It’s an international franchise and we acquired the franchise from Miss Tourism world five-years ago.
Q – Ever since you started, how has the response been?
R – In terms of content, production, it’s been exciting and challenging but of course the show must go on but one of the daunting task is the area of sponsorship. It’s almost impossible trying to get brands to put their money into this. We thought since it’s a tourism initiative designed to promote Nigeria’s tourism, brands and companies would fall in line and invest their money to make sure it’s an annual event but it becomes the other way round. We go to them and we hear all sort of excuses. Every year we keep investing our own money to put this show together hoping that later in the nearest future, government would pick interest in it.
Q – What are the benefits for the winners?
R – For Miss Tourism Nigeria, first and foremost the winner gets to represent Nigeria on the international level among other 7o countries in Miss tourism world holding in Malaysia this year. The winner will also be going home with a new car, and would be a brand ambassador to one of the biggest skin care company in the world, a brand ambassador for ‘Saving Hope’, which is our own foundation here about helping the less privileged, encouraging young people to go back to school, etc. Basically, she will become a role model and a change ambassador to young people.
Q – What’s the inspiration behind Miss tourism Nigeria?
R – Well, I’ve been in the peagant industry for 13-14 years. Primarily, I was a peagant producer and consultant for lot of peagants in Nigeria in terms of helping them produce their shows both state and nationally and also couple of international peagents and five years ago I thought about it and was like we’ve been doing this for people successfully and it’s about time we kick-start. When you are producing a peagant for someone, there’s a limit to what you can do and what you can’t do but if we are doing it ourselves, we can go beyond the limits and empower more people as compared to the way other people do theirs.
Q -What makes your peagant unique and how do you deal with accusation of not meeting up with promises?
R – First and foremost, let’s start with the accusation of not meeting up with promises, we have always delivered all of our promises. We don’t promise what we can’t give and one of the things I think get people into trouble is the focus more on the external than what you can empower the person with. I always tell our contestants that as much as you will be getting the prizes, that is not the central focus. Our focus is to make you a change ambassador so that you can also in turn empower a lot of young people so we groom our contestants in a way that even if they don’t win, they live with the orientation to become a better person. We have a lot of our contestants who didn’t win but have become better persons. I’ve some of them who even didn’t get to top 15 but today have their own NGOs. This year, we will be supporting one of those contestants. Her NGO is called Voice of the Black child Nigeria. She spends lot of money feding kids, educating them and we’ve decided to support her towards that course so for us it’s not just about showing the cars, fame, we want to do more than those things.we want to be a ble to empower them.
Q – When winner emerges, some of the candidates who probably didn’t win tend to complain to people outside, how do you handle such situation?
R – One of the things we’ve been able to strategically do with the miss tourism brand is that for every step you intend to get to, you have to work for it. It’s very open for you to know if you are doing well or not. For instance, after the auditions, we have what we call PPL which is Public participation level where we ask people vote for you. We have a company that manage that so they publish the result online so if you don’t get enough vote, you can’t go on. The most important thing is the lessons you take with you, it’s not just about learning. It’s about the experience you gather. we’ve never really had the issue of grunt in contestants. Our contestants always rally round the winner. Throughout the whole year, they support as much as possible. We have a group of 2015 and till now, it still exists and they are even sponsors for this year’s event.
Q – What’s the government support towards this event like?
R – That’s another major thing but I’m very hopeful. We’ve been to Lagos state government this year and I know the commissioner for tourism Is coming. He wants to come and see how the event can be adopted by the Lagos state government next year. I also know the Special Assistant to the Governor of Akwa ibom on Tourism is coming this year so we are excited that we are starting to get good response from the government this year.
Q – Tell us about San Tiago
R – First and foremost, I’m not the type that likes to stay in front of the camera but i’m the easy going type. I’m simple and casual. I finished from Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba.
Q – Are you comfortable doing this Job and do you want to stick to it?
R – I’ve been in the industry for 14 years, it has its own challenges but as long as you are committed to what you are doing, it will surely pay off. We keep thriving in the challenges but we are able to keep up with our co-operate expenses.
Q – Where is Santiago from?
R – I have parents from Nigeria and Ghana. My full names are Santiago Oluwaremilekun Roberts.
NNPCL and Corruption’s Final Throes
By Pius Olasanmi
In the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, when Nigerians were still capable of being outraged, when Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of refineries was a buzzword that still held some mysticism to bamboozle citizens, during a conversation, a certain man said something profound. The man said, “As a businessman, if I were the owner of these refineries, knowing that they are three decades old, I would take the last money I have, hire bulldozers, raze them to the ground, and obtain loans to build new ones.”
When we pressed him further on why he would engage in such waste, he explained that repairing the refineries is the real waste. He explained that even if the TAM were honestly carried out, a thirty-year-old refinery would never compete favourably with a new one that would integrate contemporary technology. Operating at its best, such a refinery would never be comparatively more efficient. It is therefore pointless to have spent another one naira on the refineries at that point.
A few months later, I had a conversation with a then-lawmaker on an entirely different matter. I mentioned that the National Assembly has failed by not crafting legislation that would criminalise and punish public office holders who foist wrong decisions on the country. The logic: a public office holder need not steal to be punished, wrong decisions should attract penalties for an office holder who opts for the worst of all options when there are less injurious ones.
These established premises speak to the ongoing nauseating efforts at revisionism by those who wrecked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its previous iteration, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Notably, this campaign to rewrite history is traceable to Engineer Mele Kolo Kyari, the disgraced immediate past Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL and his hirelings. They have suffocated the news and the public opinion space with even more lies than they spun while in office.
The Saint Kyari campaign is anchored on convincing Nigerians that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna Refineries were fully functional when he was booted out of office. So brazen is the campaign that one of its talking heads challenged the group chief executive officer (GCEO), Engr. Bayo Ojulari, to “inform Nigerians categorically what happened to the functioning refineries he inherited from his predecessor, Engr. Mele Kyari.” The effrontery.
We have not forgotten so soon the charade that followed the baffling claim that Nigeria has spent $2.8 billion on the repair of the refineries, while they are not churning out even a single litre of refined product among them. Saint Kyari and his goons played all manner of tricks, all of which embarrassed President Bola Tinubu, who had counted on ticking off the return to productivity of the refineries as part of his achievements, only to realise that he was deceived into celebrating phantoms. Tragic.
Lest we forget, 200 trucks were arranged as props in a well-directed video clip to celebrate the re-streaming of the Port Harcourt Refinery. The disappointment. Nigerians were to learn from several reports that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing and was instead using old, stored petroleum products to load trucks. Worse still, the Kyari crew was passing off sanction-tainted Russian-sourced crude oil refined in Malta as locally refined products. More insult was piled on the assault on our collective sensibility with the lies that the Port Harcourt Refinery exported semi-finished products. Brazen.
Meanwhile, Kyari and his hirelings called those who pointed out or protested these glaring scams all manner of names. They hid behind industry technicalities and jargon to create the impression that those of us who knew Nigerians were being robbed did not understand what we were saying. The point remains that a $2.8 billion investment can potentially build a refinery with a capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). Of course, the actual capacity of such a refinery will depend on various factors, including the complexity of the refinery, the technology used, and the location. That is the amount that Kyari’s regime at the NNPCL took and did not give Nigerians refined products.
Fast forward to Kyari’s sack and the appointment of Engineer Bayo Ojulari, who has demonstrated that things can indeed be done differently. Kyari’s exit was expectedly followed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) going after him and his associates. The extent of the theft is better understood against the backdrop of N80 billion being found in the bank account of one of his associates. They went on the run.
Perhaps because the EFCC was biding its time on securing international warrants for the arrests of these characters on the lam, they have become emboldened. They have decided to fight back and rewrite the story of their participation in the greatest fraud against Nigerians. Engineer Ojulari’s renewed mindset, which is entrenching a semblance of the transparency Nigerians demand, became their natural target. The demons that once roamed around the corporation came out with malevolence. They started spinning stories of corruption to tarnish the incumbent who refused to hide their crimes. The objective: bring Ojulari down. But alas, he is winning the war as it stands.
His innocence is proven, and it is glaring that those who want him out are mere charlatans who can no longer ply their corrupt wares because of the impact of the new reforms. Corruption in the NNPCL is in its final throes. The fake news being unleashed against the incumbent leadership is akin to corruption’s last kicks as reforms in the sector strangulate it and its practitioners. The reforms must take place in the NNPCL, whether the industry demons like it or not.
As a parting shot, Kyari and his associates would do well to prepare their defence. In addition to accounting for the $2.8 billion they laundered in the name of repairing the moribund refineries, they must also answer for the poor decision to fix that which is irretrievably broken. Awarding contracts for Turn Around Maintenance of 59-year-old refineries that a right-thinking person had suggested should be demolished almost twenty years ago, when they were only 30 years old, is criminal. Trying to deceive Nigerians that the fake repairs worked is treason.
Olasanmi is a public affairs analyst writing from Lagos.
GRANDIS 5STAR LUXURY APARTMENT & SUITES SET TO REDEFINE LIVING IN VICTORIA ISLAND
Set to Rise elegantly against the Lagos skyline, is the Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites. According to Adejuwon Ademola, The General Manager of the Development company, it is more than just a residential building
“it’s a lifestyle statement. Standing 17 floors high in the heart of Victoria Island, this revolutionary masterpiece of modern architecture will offer a panoramic 360° view of Eko Atlantic, Victoria Island, and Ikoyi, transforming every apartment into an exclusive penthouse experience for the world’s most discerning elite.”
Developed by Dumarco Construction Limited, a globally acclaimed company with decades of delivering complex, high-value projects in the highly regulated petroleum, oil, and gas industries, Grandis 5Star brings unmatched international safety standards, uncompromising quality, and timeless elegance into Nigeria’s luxury property market.
> “When you live in Grandis, you’re not just buying a home—you’re investing in peace of mind, world-class safety, and an effortless luxury experience that will remain pristine for decades,” says Adejuwon A. Ademola, General Manager of Dumarco Construction Limited.
The Gold Standard in Safety and Quality
Dumarco’s roots in the oil and gas sector mean the company operates to some of the strictest safety protocols in the world. Every stage—from conceptualization, design, construction, to long-term maintenance—follows internationally accepted procedures and quality assurance measures. Cutting corners is simply not in Dumarco’s vocabulary.
> “In the oil and gas industry, there’s no room for compromise. We’ve brought that same discipline and zero-tolerance for mediocrity into property development,” says Ademola. “That’s why Grandis will be one of the safest and most enduring residential developments in Nigeria.”
To ensure transparency and prevent (project complacency), Dumarco deliberately separates the developer, contractor, and consultant roles, engaging only the most competent professionals in each respective field. Dumarco’s project team includes globally recognized contractors such as Julius Berger, Cappa & D’Alberto, and Elalan, Migliore Construczione & Tecniche (MC&T) and their partners VENCO IMTIAZ CONTRACTING COMPANY (VICC) based in Dubai, UAE, Business Contracting Limited, alongside leading consultants like Morgan Omanitan & Abe, LAMBERT, and James Cubitt.
Grandis – Investments, appreciation, returns and profitability
Our selection process for the location of the project alone was pains-taking and completely thorough scientific process. Top professional companies were employed to conduct a scientific data acquisition and analytical survey of the entire Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki and Eko Atlantic before a project site is selected. Analyzing and acquiring areas developmental charts and trends, studying and gathering historical and present sale prices, rental charge and occupancy rates over a 50 year period from every individual street before the selection of the location of any of our developments especially true for the Grandis Project
He adds,
“Our clients and residents can be rest assured that the location of Grandis has been scientifically proven through all existing data to provide our clients with a 100% occupancy rate, highest developmental location, highest rental income and investment returns. ”
The Grandis Experience
Located minutes away from international corporate headquarters, embassies, and landmarks such as Eko Hotel, Radisson Blu, and the Radisson Red, Grandis offers unmatched convenience for professionals, diplomats, and high-net-worth individuals. Every residence is designed for both indulgence and efficiency, with high-grade finishes, smart-home systems, and private amenities that ensure seamless living.
From sunrise over the Atlantic to the glittering Lagos night skyline, residents will enjoy uninterrupted luxury, supported by discreet and highly trained staff, advanced security systems, and a design that prioritizes comfort and privacy.
> “We designed Grandis for people who want everything—security, elegance, convenience, and the assurance that their home will look as spectacular in 20 years as it does on day one,” Ademola notes.
A Legacy That Lasts
With its combination of visionary architecture, peerless safety, and meticulous maintenance planning, Grandis is built to remain iconic for generations. Thanks to Dumarco’s meticulous approach, the building’s service charges are expected to remain low while its value and appeal continue to appreciate over time.
In a market often marred by shortcuts and substandard practices, Mr Ademola says
Grandis stands as a beacon of what luxury living should be—safe, spectacular, and built to last.
“Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites — Where safety meets sophistication, and every detail is designed for a life well-lived.”
He added
Website -www.dumarcoltd.com
Project website – www.26idowutaylor.com
Email [email protected]
Tel / WhatsApp +234 9077777883
GM – Adejuwon A. Ademola
celebrity radar - gossips
Nationwide Talent, One Broadcaster: Tinubu Picks Pedro, Bello, Din, Mohammed to Lead NTA
-
society5 months agoRamadan Relief: Matawalle Distributes Over ₦1 Billion to Support 2.5 Million Zamfara Residents
-
Politics2 months agoNigeria Is Not His Estate: Wike’s 2,000‑Hectare Scandal Must Shake Us Awake
-
society4 months agoBroken Promises and Broken Backs: The ₦70,000 Minimum Wage Law and the Betrayal of Nigerian Workers
-
society3 months agoOGUN INVESTS OVER ₦2.25 BILLION TO BOOST AQUACULTURE
You must be logged in to post a comment Login