By APPOLOS  IBEABUCHI  OZIOGU
Museum is a house of treasures. It houses cultural objects which are three-dimensional, and are used for learning, teaching and research.

Though Museum movement started late in Nigeria, yet the collection of cultural artefacts began much earlier than 20thcentury through some concerted efforts of some highly respected and rich individuals and groups in various Nigerian communities who were relentlessly purchasing and making private collection of cultural objects either as their hobbies or for decorations in their residential houses, traditional shrines and cultural palaces like those of the Oba of Benin,

Ooni of Ife, Obi of Onitsha, Akarigbo of Ijebu-Remo, Akenzua of Benin, Akran of Lagos, Alafin of Oyo, Obong of Calabar, Sultan of Sokoto, Atta of Igala, Shehu of Borno, Tur of Tiv and Lamido of Adamawa etc. It is these private  collections that later turned to museum objects that are ubiquitously found today in most of our National Museums nation-wide.

How museum started

However, museum  took off properly when some British nationals in Nigeria initiated the mass collection cum preservation and presentation of our cultural artefacts (antiquities) for knowledge, entertainment, enjoyment and education. Notable among the British nationals that championed the cause of museum movement in Nigeria were Late Kenneth C. Murray, Bernard  E.B Fagg; E.H Dukworth and H. J. Brauntholts etc.

These British nationals had already known much about the importance of museum since museums exist in their respective countries of origin. As a result, when they saw the type of objects the people of Nigeria had, they immediately knew their importance.

It is important to mention that right from the period of the colonial rule in Nigeria till date, about thirty-three National museums have been established in the country, about a museum in each state of the Federation as follows:

Esie in Kwara State (1945); Jos in Plateau State (1952); Ife in Osun State (1954); Lagos in Lagos State (1957); Oron in Akwa- Ibom State (1958); Kano in Kano State (1960); Owo in Ondo State (1968); Enugu in Enugu State (1972); Benin in Edo State (1973); Kaduna in Kaduna State (1975); Ibadan in Oyo State (1976); Aba in Abia State (1984); Umuahia in Abia State (1985); Calabar in Cross River State (1986); Lokoja in Bauchi State (1988); Uyo in Akwa-ibom State(1988); Owerri in Imo State (1988); Abuja FCT(1988); Abeokuta in Ogun State(1988); Akure in Ondo State (1988); Oshogbo in Osun State (1988); Maiduguri in Borno State (1988); Minna in Niger State (1988); Yola in Adamawa State (1988); Sokoto in Sokoto State (1988); Port Harcourt in Rivers State (1988); Oyo in Oyo State (2003); Igbo-Ukwu in Anambra State (2003); NOK in Kaduna State (2003); Koko in Delta State (2004) and Badagry in Lagos State (2004).

Generally, National museum is a house of treasures. It houses museum objects which are three-dimensional objects for learning teaching and research. In Nigeria today, National museum has become one of the important tourist centres for both the nationals and foreigners, old and young, the literate and illiterate.

The coming of the white man to Nigeria helped to kill the thriving museum culture because it introduces a systematic imposition of foreign religions (Christianity and Islam) on the indigenous population. The two religions preached and practised monotheism (worship of one God), and communication with the Supreme Being is only through Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed and not  through any other intermediaries represented by idols carved in woods or iron.

Religion and death of Museum in Nigeria

Consequently Christians and their counterpart Muslim faithful on embracing, their new faith, either  destroyed their art objects as fetish and satanic or left them to decay or rot away or removed  from  museums and private homes.

Sadly as it were, most of these precious works of art were eventually taken to museums abroad. Second, Nigeria lost much of her cultural heritage though plunder as epitomized by the British punitive expedition against Benin empire in 1897 and other expeditions like Akassa raid etc.

After these various successful expeditions, these zealous colonial soldiers included in their booties, some looted works of art which they took from the cultural palaces and shrines as an evidence of their gallantry and conquest over the heathen communities of their countries of conquest.