By Annette Ikponmwonba | September 15, 2026
Key Points
· The Federal Government has backed the launch of a 100-Day Tourism Calendar aggregating Nigeria’s festivals, concerts and cultural events on one digital platform
· The calendar is powered by MyCityApp and MyLagosApp and was unveiled at the Ember2Remember National Stakeholders’ Conference in Victoria Island, Lagos
· It targets the September to December festive season, aiming to connect visitors, diaspora Nigerians and local consumers with events nationwide
· Minister of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, says the goal is turning the festive season into a platform for jobs, investment and business
· MyCityApp CEO Ifeoma Chukwu says Nigeria can realistically build a $100bn tourism economy if cultural assets are properly packaged and monetised
· States, event organisers and tourism operators are being urged to upload their September to December activities onto the calendar
Main Story
The Federal Government has thrown its support behind the launch of a 100-Day Tourism Calendar, a digital platform designed to bring together Nigeria’s festivals, concerts, cultural events and lifestyle experiences in one place. The initiative was unveiled at the Ember2Remember National Stakeholders’ Conference in Victoria Island, Lagos, according to Dr Nneka Anibeze, Senior Special Assistant to the Minister of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa.
Powered by MyCityApp and MyLagosApp, the calendar is aimed squarely at the September to December festive period, a stretch the government sees as one of the most economically active windows in the national calendar. The plan is to connect visitors, Nigerians in the diaspora and local consumers with tourism and cultural experiences happening across the country.
Speaking at the event, Musawa said the initiative reflects a shift in how government views the festive season. “This initiative is about moving beyond the traditional concept of a festive season. It is about deliberately organising, packaging, promoting, and monetising one of the most economically active periods in our national calendar,” she said.
The Issues
Nigeria’s tourism sector has long struggled with structural problems that this calendar is meant to partly address. Despite the country’s large pool of cultural festivals, entertainment events, historical sites and creative enterprises, the industry has continued to suffer from fragmented promotion, inadequate infrastructure, weak visitor data and limited coordination among operators. Without a centralized way for both local and international audiences to discover what is happening and where, much of that cultural inventory has effectively remained invisible to the very visitors who might spend money engaging with it.
The initiative also fits into a bigger national conversation about economic diversification. With oil revenue remaining volatile and a persistent source of fiscal pressure, government officials have increasingly looked to tourism, culture and the creative industries as an underused growth engine. Musawa’s framing of the value chain, spanning aviation, transportation, hospitality, entertainment, retail, technology and artisans, signals an attempt to position tourism not as a soft cultural add-on but as a serious multi-sector economic strategy.
There is also the question of execution. Digital platforms aggregating events are only as useful as the willingness of states, private operators and event organisers to actually populate them consistently, and past coordination efforts in Nigeria’s tourism space have often struggled with inconsistent buy-in from state governments and private stakeholders.
What’s Being Said
Musawa emphasized the breadth of economic activity a single visitor can generate, describing how every visitor creates a value chain that touches aviation, transportation, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, retail, technology, artisans and local communities, and that opportunities for businesses, jobs and investment sit within that chain, She also framed the platform’s ambition in global terms, describing a vision where someone sitting in London, New York, Johannesburg or Toronto could see, in one place, the range of experiences available across Nigeria. She called on state governments, event organisers, tourism operators and hospitality businesses to upload their September to December activities onto the calendar, and commended MyCityApp CEO Ifeoma Chukwu for driving the initiative, Chukwu, for her part, pushed back on any skepticism about the scale of the $100bn ambition, pointing to how tourism contributes meaningfully to major global economies. She argued that the question shouldn’t be whether a $100 billion tourism economy is possible, but why Nigeria shouldn’t be among the countries achieving it.
What’s Next
The immediate test for the initiative will be uptake. States, event organisers and hospitality businesses now need to actually upload their scheduled activities for the September to December window, and the platform’s usefulness will depend heavily on how comprehensive and consistently updated that data turns out to be, Beyond the 100 day window itself, the bigger question is whether this calendar becomes a permanent fixture in Nigeria’s tourism promotion strategy or a one off seasonal push tied specifically to the Ember months. How the government measures success, whether through visitor numbers, revenue data or diaspora engagement, will likely shape whether the initiative expands beyond this current cycle.
Bottom Line
The Federal Government is betting that better visibility and coordination, rather than new cultural assets, is the missing piece needed to convert Nigeria’s already-rich festival and tourism calendar into serious economic output, with officials framing the $100bn target as ambitious but achievable if the sector is properly packaged and promoted.
