 100vw, 813px”/>The Osun Osogbo grove</p>
<p><strong>With increased tourist inflows into and within Nigeria as motivated by religious tourism, this is set to expand economic activities, increase jobs, grow incomes and livelihoods, while also enhancing government revenues directly and indirectly through multiplier effects. More so, inflow of the much-needed foreign exchange will increase with the continuous appeal of Nigeria’s sacred destinations and spiritual attractions.</strong></p>
<p>The search for connection to the spiritual for attaining material success and well-being is possibly the most significant driver of tourism in Nigeria, from the earliest times. These journeys have been both domestic and inbound, with hordes of locals and waves of pilgrims from different parts of the world, believing in and seeking deep bonds with essences that serve their spiritual, and religious, needs across different locations in the country.</p>
<p>Religion and spirituality have inspired one of the fastest growing forms of tourism in the world which, on the home front, is as evident in the multitudes engaging in pilgrimages to the shrines of Osun Osogbo or Bilikisu Sungbo in Ijebu Ode, the long juju shrine in Arochukwu, the Api in Nsukka or even to the Guru Maharaji camp situated on the outskirts of Ibadan, among others. We equally have the massive followership of the two great Abrahamic faiths – Islam and Christianity – strewn across all towns and cities of Nigeria.</p>
<p>Economic data might not presently capture the peculiar details of the levels of activity involved in spiritual visits or journeys within and to Nigeria, as a sizeable dimension of the activities are within the ambits of the informal sector. Correlative data however shows how huge religious tourism is in the country. This can be gleaned from information around contributions to the national GDP of the hospitality, catering, travels and aviation, and related sectors.</p>
<p>From the dawn of creation, the human has essentially been a seeker, a journeying man or woman, who if not in search of physical sustenance to keep the body together, is on expeditions of finding meaning, or to understand the natural world, and that which is beyond the physical, and his or her place in it all.</p>
<p>As communities dispersed due to different pressures, people took along with them many rites that had been formed around spirituality to their new locations, from where they also kept making return journeys to their original homes and points of spiritual departure for renewal and reconnection to the source.</p>
<p>Tourism is closely linked to African traditional religions and spirituality, and Nigeria is location of and host to hundreds of festivals that arose from spiritual experiences, which people undergo travels from far and wide to partake in the spectacles involved. A few of the prominent ones among these rites – beyond those initially cited – include those of the Mmanwu, Omabe and Odo masquerades in Enugu State, the Omo-Ukwu in Ohaofia, and the highly revered Odun Ifa in Epe.</p>
<p>As earlier alluded to, the prime example of the Osun Osogbo festival commemorates the Osun river goddess believed to hold the powers of wealth and fertility, and it finds great resonance with foreigners, locals and people from Nigeria’s various Diasporas, who are persistently drawn to its annual fairs. In addition, the Udju Iwhurie Festival, also widely known as the Agbasa Juju Festival in Warri, is celebrated by the Agbarha people as tribute to Iwhurie, the god of war. And, the Iriji or New Yam festival is regularly held to appease the deities of harvest, after bountiful seasons in many parts of South-East Nigeria.</p>
<p>While there are equally other festivals arising from the worship of local deities like Sango, Ogun, and Obatala, etc. in South-West Nigeria that inspire domestic and inbound tourism, a number of other festivals have grown from religious roots to become great cultural enactments, such as the Argungu fishing festival, which has an Islamic ancestry and began as a way of ending hostilities between the Sokoto Caliphate and Kebbi Kingdom in 1934. There is also the Ojude Oba Festival in Ijebu Ode that was started as a way of paying homage to the Awujale, the paramount ruler of Ijebu land, on the third day after the Eid el-Kabir celebrations.</p>
<p><strong>Religion and Journeys of Faith</strong></p>
<p>People have engaged in journeys of faith from the earliest times, with numerous instances documented in the scriptural texts of Christianity and Islam from over two millennia back. In the Bible, some of the important religious journeys included the annual travels of Elkanah to Shiloh, as chronicled in the Book of Samuel, and the story of the travels of the Jews from all over the world to Jerusalem to observe the Passover, as recounted in the Act of the Apostles.</p>
<p><strong>A major stretch of convergence for a sizeable segment of Nigerian religious/spiritual tourism is the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway corridor, which is occupied by more than twenty different religious prayer grounds, hence its designation as The Spiritual Highway. This is an expanse hosting the grounds of numerous denominations, such as the Redemption Camp of RCCG… etc. There is equally the very visible Nasfat Islamic Centre, making it a multi-religious and diverse corridor.</strong></p>
<p>In Islamic lore, one of the most consequential journeys of the noble Prophet Muhammad (SWT) was the Hijra of 622 AD, from Mecca to Medina, signifying the human restoration from darkness to light; heathenism to true worship.</p>
<p>No doubt, while a very significant aspect of the religious tourism embarked upon by Christians and Muslims are externally oriented towards the homelands of these faith, whether in Mecca, Medina or Jerusalem, yet there have equally been a vital inbound aspect to these journeys. The country has become a magnet to many who travel from distant and near locations for faith-healing. This has been more evident, though, within the Christian faith.</p>
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