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Waterfalls, warm springs, rocks arranged in the most enthralling pattern, beaches and game reserves are a few examples of many of nature’s biggest gifts to Nigeria

Last week, an annual spectacle   was  re-enacted in Osogbo, Osun State capital. Thousands of people thronged the Osun grove to celebrate the Osun Osogbo festival, a ritual dating back to 1379 AD. As the worshippers and tourists gathered to pray and pay obeisance to the deity or just observe events in the grove on Friday, August 26, not many of them know the cultural and historical significance of the ground they trod.

Apart from the Sukur Cultural Landscape, in Adamawa State, the Osun grove is the only other UNESCO World Heritage Site in the country and it is the most popular tourism brand outside Nigeria recognisable and visited by tourists worldwide. It is also the only remaining sacred site of its size and biodiversity in Nigeria’s south-west region.

Tourists, especially find it enchanting because it boasts of a reasonably undisturbed canopy of dense forestry of a rich and diverse flora and fauna including the endangered white-throated monkeys and huge snakes. The grove covers 75 hectares of ring-fenced forest alongside the Osun River on the outskirts of Osogbo town. Unlike other Yoruba towns whose sacred groves have disappeared, the Osogbo grove has survived encroachment and modernisation efforts. Some parts were cleared in the colonial period when teak plantations and agriculture were introduced, but these efforts were resisted and eventually, stopped. As the place was in 1379 when Laaroye, its first king, held its debut Osun festival, so it is today. Also, all the objects and places in the grove including that of the Osun deity and other gods tally with their present locations within the grove.

The grove’s history is also fascinating to tourists. Osun grove in Yoruba cosmology is the ancestral home of Osun, the goddess of fertility and the spirit of waters. Ritual paths lead devotees to 40 shrines, dedicated to Osun and other Yoruba deities, as well as to other nine specific worship points beside the river. Osun is also the Yoruba personification of the “waters of life” and the spiritual life force of Osogbo town. The grove also represents a pact between Larooye, the founder of Osogbo, and Osun. The goddess promised to protect and bring prosperity to the town if the indigenes built a shrine for it, respect the spirit of the forest and hold the festival every year.

It is not surprising, therefore, that visitors and tourists to the grove are told that the grove is a highly sacred sanctuary where shrines, sculptures and artworks of Osun are venerated. Also, other Yoruba deities like Ifa, Sango, Ogun, Esu and so on have their ancestral bases there because it is believed that they all landed in the grove when they left the cosmos for the earthly realm. They are also domiciled there in the five main sacred divisions associated with different gods and cults, found on either side of a path dividing the grove from north-west to south-east.

Other tourist attractions in the grove are two ancient palaces. The first is part of the main Osun-Osogbo shrine where the first Ataoja of Osogbo, Larooye and his people originally settled. This palace is located within the courtyard and houses the Osun shrine and temple said to contain the sacred stone stool, the rock of authority of the king used some 500 years ago. Only initiates are allowed to enter the shrine and no photograph of it can be taken.

The second palace represents where Larooye moved to after giving up the first palace to Osun before the community established a new settlement outside the grove. It is about 600 metres from the first palace. Today, the Ogboni cult house stands within a symbolic reconstruction of the second palace.

Anyone also seeking adventure in a very challenging but natural setting in Nigeria, needs to visit Sukur Cultural Landscape, the other World Heritage Site in the country. It boasts of a palace, terraced fields with ritual features and villages which have survived in their original form for many centuries in the northern Mandara Mountains of Adamawa State.

Amazing views of how early humans lived abound from the Hidi’s Palace containing the ruins of the  house complex of the chief, paved walkways, water wells, iron smelting furnaces, cemeteries, traditional shrines, domesticated landscape with extensive terraces some for farming or for spiritual significance and granite and dry-stone architecture in the villages.

UNESCO, which listed Sukur as a World Heritage Site in 1999, is enamoured with it because of its exceptional landscape which graphically illustrates a form of land-use that marks a critical stage in human settlement and their relationship with their environment which have survived unchanged for many centuries and continues to do so, especially when this form of traditional human settlement is nearly extinct in many parts of the world.

On a visit, the tourist must climb the mountain by the northern paved way, see the ancient plateau in various seasons, enter Sukur modern town to meet locals going about their business or relaxing, and return by a different route to Mefir Suku, the village on the plain that holds a market visited by both Sukur and Margi people every Tuesday.

The tour cannot be complete without a visit to the ancient Stone Palace of the Xidi where one is thrilled by the pictorial and oral history of the people, the craft, culture, fight against colonialism and their dance.

Ikogosi Springs in Ekiti is another popular tourist site. This warm spring runs down a hilly landscape where it forms a confluence with another cold spring from an adjoining hill and merges into one continuous stream. There is a marked section where tourists can feel the temperatures of the warm and cold spring simultaneously. The evergreen tall trees which surround the spring provide the canopy under which visitors relax. An astonishing feature there is the growth of an Iroko tree and palm tree from the same root. Legend has it that it represents the cold and warm waters of the spring. The undulating landscape adds natural beauty to the scenery.

Though there are worshippers of the spring, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure that the spring is not deified by Osun worshippers with the placement of iron rods and in some cases, barbed wire along the spring’s source. But, government has not taken appropriate steps to ensure that the chalets built there are well-kept and maintained.

Rt. Rev. Charles Burke, an Irish Bishop and tourist, has seen many wonderful and awe-inspiring sights. But none of them compares with what he recently saw at Ikogosi. There, the Catholic cleric came face to face with two springs flowing side by side. While one is cold, the other is very warm. And since that experience, Burke has been totally convinced that God truly loves Nigeria. “I believe there is nowhere in the world where cold and warm water meets, except at the Ikogosi spring. Any other one would be man-made, which is artificial. Ikogosi is a miracle of nature and a sacred place where God exhibited his power of creativity,” he said. He appealed to the state government to urgently transform the site to a world class status, because unlike Osun grove, foreign tourists are unaware of its existence.

Other tourist attractions in Ekiti State are Arinta Water falls, Ipole-Iloro; Olosunta Hills, Ikere-Ekiti. Natural Caves also in Ikere-Ekiti, Fajuyi Memorial Park, Ado-Ekiti; Ero Dam, Ikun-Ekiti; Egbe Dam, Egbe-Ekiti. Closely linked to the tourism potential of the state are the festivals that are held seasonally.

Another of nature’s biggest gifts to Nigeria is the Yankari National Park. It is a large wildlife park located in Bauchi State, north-eastern Nigeria. It covers an area of about 2,244 square kilometres and is home to several natural warm water springs, including a wide variety of flora and fauna. Its location in the heartland of the West African savannah makes it a unique place where tourists can watch wildlife in their natural habitat. The park is an important refuge for more than 50 species of mammals including African Bush Elephant, Olive Baboon, Patas Monkey, Tantalus Monkey, Roan Antelope, Western Hartebeest, Lion, African Buffalo, Waterbuck, Bushbuck and Hippopotamus. It also has a large and diverse freshwater ecosystem around its freshwater springs and the Raji River. There are also over 350 species of birds found in the Park. Of these, 130 are resident, 50 are Palearctic migrants and the rest are intra-African migrants that move locally within Nigeria and include the Saddle-billed Stork, White-rumped Vulture, Guinea fowl, Grey hornbill and the Cattle Egret.

Yankari has one of the largest populations of elephants in West Africa, estimated at more than 300 in 2005. The growth of the elephant population has become a problem for surrounding villages at times because the animals ravage local farms during the rainy season. The elephants have also stripped the park of many of its baobab trees.

Yankari National Park also features four warm water springs. One of them is the Wikki Spring, the most well known of them. Wikki is,  the local Duguri language “meaning “where are you?”  It is the largest spring  and is about 13.0 metres wide and 1.9 metres deep and has the same temperature at all times and seasons, flows 21,000,000 litres of clear, spring water into the Gaji river. It is open for swimming 24 hours a day and there are 110 furnished chalets with varying size and quality, ranging from the “presidential’’ suites to the youth hostel, all of which are being upgraded in phases. The camp also provides a restaurant, bar and conference centre. Daily safari trips depart at least twice from the camp.

The other warm water springs are Dimmil, Gwan, and Nawulgo springs. Tungan Naliki, the fifth spring, is the only cool spring in the park.

There are many rocks around Nigeria but the most popular is the Olumo Rock. But, even if you have visited Olumo Rock many times before or have seen several pictures of it, you have to return to behold another spectacle. The Olumo Rock, located in Abeokuta, Ogun State, has just revealed a new face of itself which had eluded many visitors for years. According to Tunde Sawyerr, retired major and executive director, Olumo Rock Tourist Complex, the revelation is Isipaya which refers to the biggest natural rock sculpture of a woman, lying on her back with her feet pointed towards the Ogun River and besides her feet, grew the centuries-old Iroko tree which is always visible atop the rock.  This picturesque becomes visible as the rock is approached from the main gate of the resort. “I call her Isipaya,” Sawyerr said. Isipaya means revelation in Yoruba language. The rock, comprising caves and rocks was, through Ifa deity’s divination, a source of sanctuary and protection for the aged, their wives and their children from the warriors of the old Oyo empire while their men were on the battlefield during the inter –tribal wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Guided tours will reveal relics of its earliest inhabitants like the hanging and crumbling walls of makeshift private rooms; secret war cabinet rooms where battle strategies were planned; stones used by women for grinding; tunnels through which they passed outside to fetch supplies and so on.

Abeokuta, which literally meaning “the city built under a rock” derives its name from the rock. Climbing the rocks and the complex caves that surround it is very fascinating and can be done through the stone stairway or elevator. But, the elevator stops at the first level of the rock. The elevator for the second level is still under construction. Before, adventurous tourists had to climb the second rock  to reach its topmost range because the stairs ended there but now, the stairs have been extended to reach the topmost part. The view from there is unparalleled as all of Abeokua’s old part can be seen.

Standing at almost 3,000 feet above sea level is Idanre hills in Ondo State in Idanre town. The town is divided into the new settlement lying at the foot of the hills and Oke Idanre representing the old settlement atop the hills. Located about 24 kilometres southwest of Akure, the state capital, the hills consist of about 640 steps and five resting posts along the steps to the top. At the top, there is an intriguing footprint which is widely believed to enlarge or contract to accommodate every foot otherwise, one is considered to be a witch or wizard. Its physical attributes include Owa’s palace, Shrines, Old Court, Belfry, Agboogun footprint, thunder water or Omi Aopara. Added to its beauty which fires human curiosity is the fact that the entire people of Idanre lived on these borders for almost a millennium.

Festivals, like Ogun, celebrated in March and the seven-day Ife festival, make the site a living tradition. Apart from the festivals, the flora and fauna of the hills are also unique because a special specie of tail-less animal called Hyrax live there. Monkeys are also spotted near Orosun hills. The hill also serves as home to a group of bats and the people hold a unique festival of bats every year.

Argungu international fishing festival is celebrated by people of Argungu, in Sokoto State. It is famous for its fishing festival in which a lake is stocked with fish which are nurtured  until the festival day. Individuals go into the lake without the aid of boats and the prize goes to the one with the largest catch. This festival attracts visitors from all over the world.

As part of the fishing festival, car manufacturers and marketers have organised the annual Argungu motor rally in which cars go through an endurance race over country roads. Notable names like Toyota, Mercedes and Peugeot feature in the rally.

Obudu Cattle Ranch is situated on a land area of about 10,240 hectares and with a semi-temperate climate. The ranch is located in Cross River State and provides an ideal holiday resort for tourists. The best time to visit is between October and March just before the raining season to experience the ranch’s beautiful and captivating scenery of rolling grassland, deep wooded valleys and waterfalls. The site is modernised with the construction of chalets and cable cars but despite its beauty and upscale facilities, the place is largely bereft of tourists due to inadequate publicity and infrastructure.

With its location close to the coastline, Lagos, Nigeria has natural sites with tropical coconuts, mangrove and other seaside vegetation for vacationers and visitors to enjoy, especially with its numerous beaches which are open to visitors including Badagry, Lekki, Bar Beach and Eleko. Some of the beaches which are still open to the public include Oniru and Alpha beaches.