The Curator of the Benin City National Museum, Mark Olaitan, has commended the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, for his contributions toward the growth of the museum located in the heart of the state capital.
Olaitan, who spoke in an exclusive interview with a team from The Nigerian Observer, said the current site of the museum at Ring Road, Benin City, was built at the instance of the one-time governor of the then Bendel State, Late Col. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, but it was since the coming to office of Governor Obaseki and with his support that the museum has enjoyed real peace of mind using the premises.
“Ever before then [Ogbemudia’s time], museum has been in Benin since 1969, based on our records. Before then, we were using some other smaller areas, from the palace down to part of the premises we now occupy until when he finished building this place in 1973; that was when he handed it over to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments. Since then, we have been on this ground,” he said.
The curator said thereafter, no other governor in the state had ever come to the aid of the museum, or culture and art in whatever form, until Governor Obaseki came on board.
“Before his [Obaseki’s] coming, we have seen a governor who came with bulldozers to bulldoze what we call monuments in this premises; bulldozed exotic halls that were being built by UNESCO; bulldozed some buildings that were part of monuments in this state. We are not even talking about buildings that we built by ourselves, but buildings that were part of monuments in the city – all these a government came and destroyed and referred to them as public toilets,” Olaitan said.
“Be that as it may, it got to a time that God raised another person up in the person of Governor Godwin Obaseki. He came on board and gave us peace, as far as this premises is concerned,” he said.
Before that time, Olaitan said, anybody could come to the premises with horsewhips and start whipping everybody, whether that person was a curator or not, and close the door anyhow and put a red tape and say, ‘I will call mobile court for you’.
“But with the arrival of this governor, he gave us peace. That’s why we are always praying for him. We believe the ancestors are also praying for him, because he has been of good help,” he said.
Giving insight into the work of the museum, Olaitan said the work of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments has to do with preservation of culture, both tangible and intangible.
“We deal with things that have to do with the past; what our forefathers used to do. We are not dealing mainly with contemporary things, just like National Gallery of Arts, they specialize in that. Our own, we deal with antiquities. We preserve, we protect, we conserve what we met our forefathers do in the past that they managed to hand over to us, and the ones they did not manage to hand over to us, we do research on and do all we should to see how we can transfer them to the next generation coming after us,” he said.
