Benin National Museum, located at the city centre along King’s Square, is considered a premier national museum because of Benin’s rich cultural heritage. It is reckoned to hold an immense amount of history not just of the Benin Empire but of surrounding ancient city-states. The museum’s curator, MARK OLAITAN, a deputy director, in this exclusive interview with CHUKS OLUIGBO, BILL OKONEDO and OLUWATOYIN ODUARAN, speaks on the history, work, challenges and prospects of the National Museum, Benin City. He is joined by SEGUN OISAMOJE, the museum’s research officer and an assistant director.
First, we want to establish one fact. This is the National Museum, Benin City, and there is the National Commission for Museums and Monuments. What’s the relationship?
National Commission for Museums and Monuments, that is our name generally in Nigeria. It is a federal government institution. But when we want to segment it, we say, National Museum, Benin, National Museum, Osogbo, National Museum, Ile-Ife, etc. But all of us collectively, we are National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The headquarters cannot say they are National Museum, but each of the stations can stand as National Museum, just like here, National Museum, Benin.
Could you give some historical background on the National Museum, Benin?
Museum has been in Benin since 1969, based on our records. However, it was in 1973 that the National Museum Benin occupied our present premises. We are privileged to have been brought in by the one-time governor of the then Bendel State, Late Col. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia. It was the effort of the man that brought about this particular building. 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. And ever since then, we have not seen any governor that has ever come to the aid of culture, art, in the state in whatever form, not until Governor Godwin Obaseki came on board. Before his coming, we have seen a governor who came with bulldozers and bulldozed what we call monuments in this premises; bulldozed exotic hub that was 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, and nothing was done about it.
Be that as it may, it got to a time that God raised another person up in the person of Governor Obaseki. He came on board and gave us peace as far as this premises is concerned. Before that time, anybody could come to this place with horsewhips and start whipping everybody, whether you’re a curator or not, close the door anyhow and put 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.
Now we have a first floor, second floor, and third floor. The ground floor was done by the Benin Dialogue Group. The Benin Dialogue Group came on board and felt that they needed to showcase a gallery or an exhibition of Chief S. O. Alonge who was a photographer in the palace for over three decades, and based on that, the white men saw his work and they chose to collect some of his work and took them abroad. America happened to be part of them. From there, they took it all over to exhibit. And they felt that they should bring it back to where they carried it from, and that’s how we got the gallery to showcase the work of S. O. Alonge, being sponsored by Benin Dialogue Group. The governor’s mother, when she was 16 years old, happened to be in one of those photographs. The governor himself didn’t even know this at the time. He was not yet a governor then but he was a member of the group. It was after they had completed the work and they were to open it that he became the governor. Of course, he was invited to come and open the gallery at the top floor. As a result of the good work that the governor has done for us, the ground floor, the first floor and the top floor are now uniform. So, why are we not going to keep praying for him?
What, essentially, does the National Commission for Museums and Monuments do?
The work of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments has to do with preservation of our culture, both tangible and intangible. When you talk about culture, there are many parastatals that are involved. We have the National Gallery of Arts, we have the National Council for Arts and Culture, etc, and each has its own role and it is that role that makes each one different from the others. So, at the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, we deal with things that have to do with the past; what our forefathers used to do. We are not dealing mainly with contemporary collections. National Gallery of Arts, they specialize in that. Our own, we deal with antiquities. We preserve, we protect, we conserve what our forefathers did in the past that they managed to hand over to us, and the ones they did not hand over to us, we do research on them and do all we can to see how we can transfer them to the next generation coming after us.
So, since its work has to do with the past, does the National Museum work hand in hand with departments of Archaeology in universities, for instance, who dig up things from time to time that can actually be preserved in the museum?
Of course, we do. The truth of the matter is that even though they might have their own authority as lecturers to do one or two other things, anything that has to do with archaeological work, we have a forum, Archaeological Association of Nigeria, which has its roots in the museum. Anything they are doing, we work hand in hand. If they discover any new thing, they ought to make it known to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
Do we have people who are specialists in Benin arts and culture or Benin Studies, and what are they called? We have Egyptologists, for instance, referring to those who have interest in or study Egyptian history, arts and culture. Do we have a similar thing in Benin?
Segun Oisamoje: We have people who specialize in Benin Studies. There is an Institute for Benin Studies along Textile Mill Road here in Benin City, and their job is to write history about the Binis. If you’re talking of specialists in arts and culture industry, we have different specialists with different mandates. We have the archaeologists, we have the historians, we have the ethnographers, although some will tell you that ethnography is just a process, a research tool, but we also have ethnographers as professionals, we have those who are engaged in gender studies, and we also have those who study culture as a discipline.
Egyptology is mainly about the study of Egypt. They have coined a word for it to describe the study of Egyptian history. So also Beninology. At a time, it was headed by Professor S. B. O. Omoregie. You also have other eggheads who are also versed in the study of Benin culture. So, the fact that we have not been able to popularize Beninology does not mean that we don’t have one but not in the way you look at it as compared to that of Egypt.
We are aware that the National Museum also keeps records of heritage sites outside of the museum. Do we have some of those heritage sites around Benin?
We have heritage sites around Benin, and they are documented. We have many of them in town and some of them, we are even waiting for them not just to be declared as national monuments, but to enter into the UNESCO Heritage Sites. One of them is our moat, city wall. According to history, it is believed that what we have in Benin is more and bigger than even what they have in China. But we do not know the importance of what we have, that’s why till today people are still blocking it and messing it up in many ways. That is one. We have the Oba Ogiamien House (Ogiamien Palace). Again, we have the Holy Aruosa Church (Edo National Church of God) which was built around 1440.
Does the national museum make any effort to preserve these heritage sites, or are they left to the people who originally own them or to the state?
The truth of the matter is that most of these objects are national monuments; they have been declared as national monuments. But one thing with the UNESCO law is that, some of these things, there’s no way we can force you or coerce you to collect what belongs to you. For instance, I’m a Yoruba man, there’s no way I can protect or preserve your culture better than you. You are the owner of your culture. You might not know, but I should be able to guide you if I know better, but to take or not to take is now left for you. So in the course of that, the work is about 50/50. This involves the original owners, including the communities where these things are located. If the Obas and the chiefs fold their hands and do nothing, there’s very little we can do. We have tried in the past, we’ve gone out to enlighten people, it’s our job. At times too when we go out we do encounter challenges. In those days when we went out, we didn’t have challenges because we went out with police escorts. But now it takes a lot for us to go and do that. To be able to mobilize for police escorts now is a challenge.
There is also the challenge with finance. Maybe because of the situation of the country’s economy today, government will tell you that they don’t have enough funds to do what they are supposed to do. Sometimes we have to use our personal cars and resources to go and do the work, and there’s not much we can achieve like that. But we are still doing our best because we know it’s our job.
Do you have tourists visiting the museum regularly, whether local or foreign?
People do come to the museum to see things. However, they are not coming yet to the level of our satisfaction. Schools come, whether they like it or not, because it is part of their curriculum. We have thousands of them that visit this place. Foreigners do come especially during Christmas period, but because of the insecurity that is now a big challenge to the nation, the rate at which people come here has reduced, especially the foreigners.
We know it is not a profit-making institution, but does the museum generate revenue?
Even though we are not business-oriented, we still do generate some revenue; people who visit, we charge them a little token. We need money to do at least basic maintenance. We cannot charge them big money, but we still generate some revenue. For instance, we have what we call Clearance Permit Unit here. Any object going out of the country that is not antiquity, even your adire clothes, tie and dye materials, your beads, anything that has to do with our culture that you are taking out of the country, you need to take it to the museum and the museum has to charge you some token on that object before you take it out. The clearance paper from the museum is what you will show to the Customs to allow the item pass. Also, people coming to our gallery, we charge them a little token; we don’t make it free so that we can also have some money for some maintenance work. And we also pay money to the Treasury Single Account (TSA). That way, government is reassured that we are working.
Again, what we have in the museum is more valuable and richer than what we have in the central bank. People say, oh, there is money in the central bank, that is money. For instance, we are talking of changing of naira notes, very soon the old notes will be phased out, but our own culture remains forever. Once you pick one out, it is no longer our culture, it is no longer original. It’s duplicate you’re bringing in. So what we are preserving here is richer than what you have in the central bank.
What are the prospects you see for the museum and the arts and culture in this environment?
From time to time we keep on witnessing the growth of museums. To crown it all, we have been talking about repatriation of artefacts and Benin happens to be the centre of this object repatriation because it has to do with the bronze, wooden objects, but particularly the bronze objects. Whether we like it or not, the bell of Benin is sounding all over the world. You cannot talk about Benin now without talking of repatriation. And that was because of what happened in 1897. Our sorrow of 1897 is now a thing of joy in 2023; it is bringing joy to the whole country. We hear of EMOWAA, Edo Museum of West African Arts, it is still part of what’s coming out of the museum. Very soon we will be hearing of Royal Palace Museum, that will come on board. Within this area you will be hearing about three different museums that will create more jobs and opportunities for people and more foreigners too will be coming.
Some of the art works from the past are said to be not just art pieces, they also contain symbols that are capable of being translated into words since we did not have a system of writing in the past. What are your thoughts?
The truth is that the white people brought the system of writing into our society. We did not write in the past but we did write in our hearts, and we did express whatever we had in mind. And in those days there was no photography in our society. What we did to document our history was through oral tradition. Beyond the oral, our forefathers would carve and work on objects which could be bronze, wooden, iron, etc. from their thoughts, imagination and expressions. Of course, there is no way you can carve or capture what you have not imagined. Imaginations are created out into reality and it can be got from happenings of the past or current. This was common among wood carvers, bronze carvers and many others. Messages are documented through carving. .
Segun Oisamoje: These objects contain information in both time and space. When Oba Ovonramwen was deported to Calabar, they sent a message to him through a stool detailing what was happening in his kingdom. We didn’t have biro, we didn’t have paper, but we had our own mode. So the objects are not mere objects, they are archival materials. It was not just arts for arts sake, they were functional arts. The material an object is made of is also telling a story. The aristocratic class is known by the media of the object. The higher/royal class, their objects are in bronze while the chiefs have theirs in wood. So, the media is also information on its own. Beyond that, you can also interpret an object if you are schooled in the art. It depends on your level of interpretation and understanding.
Apart from tangible objects, intangible objects were also used for record keeping. For instance, family greeting was a way of keeping records. They used family greetings to keep a tab on population census to know the number of families or people in a family. Praise names were also forms of information.
What do you think can be done to keep the museum and the heritage sites as vibrant as they ought to be?
To keep the museum vibrant, it is in your hands, it is in my hands. No other person can know better how and where I buried my father than I, the son of the man. You cannot come and repair my house without carrying me along, else you might lay a foundation on the head of my father which will annoy me and cause friction between us. So, based on that fact, there is no way one person can do it, not even the government because if you don’t cooperate with the government, government too will fail. So it will involve the individual, community and government. When we talk about government we are talking about the local government, state government, and federal government. We need to sit together and tell ourselves the truth, not by deceiving ourselves. When we sit down and talk about the matter properly, there will be a way out. I’m involved, you are involved, the Obas and the chiefs are involved, all of us must tell ourselves the truth. If we can cooperate and be on the same page, it is quite possible. The media also has a big role to play in helping to create awareness to the people and letting the people know what is actually happening. It is not a one man’s effort but a collective effort.
