Reterdeen Staff
The fundamental purpose behind museums and exhibition centers is neither to teach nor engage, it is a memory bank to help one to remember the past. That is why it is not surprising that most social orders in various parts of the world followed their cause through their arts. Galleries are accumulation focuses of legacy materials that render significant help to open recollections.
From 1950s to date, more than twenty galleries have been made to help in the overseeing of social materials which are for the most part ancient rarities and ethnographic materials found inside Nigeria. By definition, Museums in Nigeria are regularly seen as social asset with a mandate to gather, store and grandstand to the general population the social materials of the antiquated days.
The introduction of museums especially in Nigeria can’t be isolated from the old culture of royal residences and places of worship, where ancient rarities and valuable gems are kept. These were found to frame some portion of the starting point of historical centers in Nigeria. In the old occasions, Kings appointed specialists who made critical aesthetic pieces that symbolized the lifestyle of the general population and holding their religions, social or political life. These have added to their social legacy and protection foundation.
Colonization gave the open door for Nigerians to make a trip toward the western world, which further illuminated them to the embodiment of securing arts in Nigerian galleries, through western impact, the operational duty of the organization in charge of the protection of the arts in Nigeria, of the general population expanded from just safe-keeping and practical religious reason, to salary gaining, and giving job opportunities.
After Independence from the colonialists, however, ‘greedy pirates’ kept on looting defenseless cultural arts around the globe; and they kept on enjoying ‘expansive scale burglary and ravaging’ at African archeological sites, landmarks and exhibition halls.
In Nigeria, In the Muslim community, extremists have crushed icons, and plundered for non-ideological benefit. Equally Christian evangelists in Africa like Uma Ukpai, have crushed social items. Notwithstanding these exercises, communities that have suffered economically have been compelled to remove their archeological legacy to be sold for survival.
Be that as it may, another major problem of these museums is poor financing Non-subsidizing of their exercises in any case, the National Museum, Enugu and National War Museum, Umuahia, Abia State have kept on pulling in individuals from people in general for touring and instructive purposes. A visit to the Enugu and Umuahia exhibition halls set up in 2006 and 1985 separately demonstrates their administrations have kept on running unhindered.
Yet, these museums can be a good source of input to the Nigerian Economy. Quite recently, the Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler, unveiled that without precedent for 2016, the Federal Government shared over N500 billion earned from non-oil sources (which includes tourism), among the three levels of government amid the Federal Accounts and Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.
It is intriguing when you realize that since the tenure and through the period of President Olusegun Obasanjo, spending plans of the Nigerian Museums have been going down at an extraordinary speed. And since the oil sector is drastically falling, there is need to safeguard the country out of the unpalatable impacts of age-long sustenance on mono-economy, by saddling openings that possess large amounts of culture and tourism.
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