Las Vegas Weekly

March 31, 2009 · 8:01 AM

Is the Jackson family trying to launch a theme park and casino in Nigeria?

By Robin Leach

The Jacksons, minus Michael (and Jermaine), accept their BMI honor.

Photo: Image.net

Michael Jackson’s quiet brother Marlon has just shocked followers of the family with his plans to find investors for a $3 billion tourist destination in Nigeria he wants to build in the African nation.

The golf course, a casino and the collection of Jackson family memorabilia didn’t raise eyebrows in the land of email money scams. But it’s the interactive theme park dedicated to the theme of slavery that has people shaken.

Marlon’s official literature says that visitors will be able to see the very route their ancestors walked, shackled together as they were whipped before boarding ships across the Atlantic Ocean for America. They are promising a replicated slave port and ship!

Please understand that I have nothing against a museum or memorial that exposes the atrocities of slave trading. Bill Cosby is a high-profile benefactor of the proposed U.S. National Slavery Museum near Washington, D.C., in Virginia where the first slaves landed: Click HERE.

But to tie one in with gambling, golf and resort luxuries seems very odd -- and slightly dysfunctional -- to say the least! Neither am I convinced that tourists are going to jump on a jet for this idea!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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