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By Theophilus C. Amadi
A Museum is not-for-profit permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage, open to the public, accessible and inclusive, Museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing (ICOM Museum).
This is the latest definition as approved and adopted on the 24th of August 2022 during the 26th ICOM Conference held in Prague.
This definition overrides that of (ICOM 2007) which defines museum as follows:
A Museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of the society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purpose of education, study and enjoyment.
Before the establishments of Museum in Nigeria, most of the artefacts were deposited in the hand of traditional rulers, priests, or village heads. The artefacts were found in either home; shrines or temples where the objects seem to be preserve served as a Museum though without proper documentation or exhibition and were not open to the public. Moreover most of them were used for sacrifices, rituals and worship. These objects were able to stand any weather condition and last long because of the preservative method of coating them with ash and cam wood and systematic smoking. And some of these objects pass on from generation to generation and when the Europeans came to Nigeria, they made away with most of these rich cultural objects while some were destroyed as the case of 1897 expedition of Benin Kingdom.
When Nigeria was colonized a lot of new ideas and institutions were put in place, education, religion, commerce and politics on which bases some Europeans came to Nigeria as researchers and teachers who discovered that the country is blessed with lots of rich cultural objects but were either stolen or destroyed championed the initial development of museums in Nigeria. Prominent among them are K. C. Murray often referred to as “The Founder of Nigerian Museums”, E. H. Dockworth (editor of Nigerian teachers), B. E. B. Fagg a surveyor of Nigerian antiquities. They were linked with the NOK culture, who discovered that there were not enough cultural objects for teaching aids because a lot were shipped abroad moved and requested the colonial government to legislate against exportation of cultural artefacts and to set up Museum to preserve the objects. By 28th July 1943. K. C. Muray was appointed the first director of the department of antiquities under the ministry of works, then their function was purely that of civil service procedures. In 1953, the antiquities ordinance No. 17 was passed and it provided for the creation of national department of antiquities charged with the responsibility of exploration, care and preservation of antiquities of works or art and provide also for the exportation of works of arts from Nigeria. Later the antiquity department was referred to as Antiquities commission with professor Dike Kenneth as the chairman and governing board. By 1979, decree No. 77 was promulgated and dissolved the antiquities commission and department of antiquities and replaced it with National Commission for Museums & Monuments (NCMM).
Bernard Fagg established the earliest Museums in Nigeria “Esie Soap Stone Museum” at Kwara State in 1945, Jos Museum in 1952, Ife Museum (1954), Lagos Museum (1957), Oron Museum (1958) and Benin Museum in 1960. The Nigerian Museum were still advancing in development thus there was need to properly train museum workers. UNESCO aided Nigeria to establish a centre for museum studies now Institute of Archaeology and Museum Studies, Jos, Plateau State. While the museum was trying to be firm, the Nigeria Civil War of 1967 to 1970 began and the Museum activities were disrupted and most objects were destroyed.
After the civil war, there was revival of the Museum with what was left over with more pressures on the government to continually support the Museum and give it a proper recognition.
In 1979, National Commission for Museums and Monuments was established by the promulgation of decree 1979 which dissolved the former Department of Antiquities and Nation Antiquities Commission that were established earlier. Dr. Ekpo Eyo was appointed the first Director General of the new established commission. Since the establishment of the NCMM, the commission has recorded about sixteen (16) Director Generals both substantive and in acting capacity.
The establishment of the commission gave the museum more powers and authority to deal directly with other international cultural organizations and also to plan and establish more museums in different parts of the country. To this effect, the commission has established museums and declared monuments and sites in all the regions of Nigeria to promote unity and national identity among Nigerians and showcase the rich cultural heritage of Nigeria, which has been attracting numerous tourists. The NCMM became responsible to collect, preserve our cultural heritage and to prevent illicit exportation of these cultural objects as well as tracing countries and individuals in possession of Nigeria’s objects and also negotiate for the repatriation of the cultural objects.
The commission has recorded the establishment of 52 museums across the 36 states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Some state has more than one Museum like Abia State having the Museum of Colonial History. Aba telling the political and economic history of Nigeria from the colonial rule till independence, and the National War Museum, Umuahia displaying indigenous ingenuity of Nigerians in war technology and a centre for conflict resolution. The museum has also recorded the declaration of about sixty five (65) National Monuments and Sites, and about One Hundred (100) Monuments and Sites have been listed awaiting to be declared. Among the declared Monuments and Sites includes two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Sucur Cultural Landscape, Adamawa State and the Sacred Grove of Osun at Osogbo, Osun State.
To sustain the established museums, the NCMM has continually embarked on training and retraining the staffs on current Museum practices in the institute at Jos and other exchange and collaborating programmes with other countries and world cultural organizations.
The Director General Prof. Abba Isa Tijani and his management team embarked on a tour round the countries of the world that are in possession of most valuable Nigeria collections to negotiate for the repatriation and indeed the move yielded marvelous results that the Nigerian people are celebrating the return of some of the objects such as: The return of the Ife terracotta head from Netherland.
And the return of Ife Bronze head from Mexico. The repatriation of 1,130 Benin bronze from Germany, Which was achieved through several discussions under the Benin Dialogue Group(BDG), initiated by NCMM involving Edo state government, representatives of the federal government, the Royal Benin Palace and the representatives from German government and other European countries.
In preparation to receive the repatriated objects, the NCMM also embarked on the construction, reconstruction and rehabilitation of most Museums as well as upgrading and updating of the Museum so that tourists to the Nigeria Museum will have quality service delivery. The project is ongoing since the year 2020 and will be sustained until all the Museums are in better shape. Some of the affected Museums are Old Residency Museum, Calabar, Slave History Museum Calabar, Museum Of Colonial History Aba, Lagos Museum, Esie Museum, Abeokuta Museum, Kaduna Museum, Jos Museum just to mention a few.
Over the years, the Museum depended on the federal government allocation to carry out most of its projects. The Museum were not engaged in any enterprise that can generate much revenue to maintain its facilities, this was a big challenge. In order to overcome this challenge the DG inaugurated the Strategic Business Committee with the responsibility of looking inwards the Museum to see how to use the facilities around the Museum to generate revenue. The committee toured round the Museums in various states to create awareness and to sensitize the Curators (Head of various Museum stations) on how to employ the facilities around them to create revenue and also to engage into the Public Private Partnership to carry out some projects and sponsor some Museum programmes.
This new trend in the Museum is effective as most Museum that have keyed into it have great improvement for example: Old Residency Museum Calabar had their library equipped to a modern library facility by the American embassy.
Port Harcourt Museum also had an individual Prof. Mrs. Nwanna Nzenwa who built and furnished their library. National War Museum Umuahia having their gallery and part of the
open air exhibition totally renovated by the Nigerian Army, while the Nigerian Navy renovated the NNS Bonny Ship on exhibition. The Lagos Museum has been enjoying a lot of foreign and locally funded programmes and projects.
More so, some Museums now embarked on renting out some of the premises that are lying fallow for business out fits this could be witnessed in Ibadan, Jos, Lagos, Kaduna to mention but a few. The good news is that most Museums now are struggling and working hard to generate revenue and to make the Museum a place to be.
Staff Welfare has also improved tremendously and the era of backlog of promotion is over and entitlements have been settled.
The Museum Directorate has also increased to six Directorates and plans are on the way to create zonal offices across the country. And this no doubt will create more opportunities for growth and promotions.
• Amadi is Curator, National Museum of Colonial History, Aba
