Golf has potential to spur tourism sector’s growth, says Okafor

By : Christian Okpara

Date: 26 November 2025 2:17am WAT

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Speaking in Lagos at the weekend, CIO Golf Classic’s sponsor, Chief Ikenna Okafor

Speaking in Lagos at the weekend, CIO Golf Classic’s sponsor, Chief Ikenna Okafor

For over five years, CIO Golf Classics has been one of the country’s biggest golf tournaments, drawing players from across Africa and beyond.

Played in Port Harcourt towards year end, the CIO Classics has grown to be reckoned among the best competitions on the continent, with its affiliation to Kenya’s Safari Tour giving it the leverage to draw some of the continent’s best players to the Garden City.

But the organisers of the competition, which started as a birthday kitty for the chairman of Keeves Global Leasing, Chief Ikenna Okafor, say their aim is to grow the event into the biggest tourism booster in the country, with the world’s best players coming to Nigeria to fight for the prize money and at the same time savour all that the country has on offer.

Speaking in Lagos at the weekend, CIO Golf Classic’s sponsor, Okafor, said that the organisers of the championship are widening the scope to make it a destination of choice for the world’s best players.

He said: “The idea is to make the CIO Classics a truly national championship rotated across the big cities of the country and attracting tourists yearly to the country.

“Nigeria’s golf is still underdeveloped, but we are working to let people know the benefits in investing in golf. Many western countries make a lot of money from golf tourism and Nigeria can be part of that.

“Somebody like Donald Trump, for instance, devotes his time in building golf courses and he makes money from it because golf courses are self-sustaining.”

Ikenna announced plans to increase the CIO Golf Classic’s prize money from N75 million to N100 million or $75,000, whichever sum is higher, starting with the next edition scheduled for November 2026.

“The truth is that I have a big dream for the CIO Golf Classic. We are happy that we had a successful tournament this year in Port Harcourt, where the professional golfers competed for N75 million purse, but we are going to make it bigger next year with a purse of N100m or $70,000. If the naira loses value by then, we will pay the dollar equivalent.”

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