Museums in the era of decolonisation: the Nigerian perspective

Abstract

Museums are spaces designed to preserve and disseminate knowledge about peoples and cultures. It is a place that keeps items that serve as evidence of history and identity frozen in time for knowledge purposes. Museums were a direct result of elites exhibiting their collections and cabinets of curiosity to the amazement of visitors in their homes. Over time, private collections became museum institutions of knowledge and repositories that have become pride of nation-states. As learning spaces, museums enhance education and enjoyment of visitors, through varied cultures displayed from their collections. However, museums are not to be perceived as entirely western supporting colonial ideology but they should substantiate national history from varied cultural perspectives that fosters identity formation and communal history. The paper focuses on how the persistent call for decolonisation within museums has been perceived and adopted in Nigeria. Using mixed methodology, that included archival and historic research, data collection was through surveys, personal observation, interviews to ascertain museum types within Nigeria. The paper describes museum concept as a cultural construct that aligns to African ideology. Finally, the paper concludes that the low visitors number to museums in Nigeria is due to a disconnect between institution and the citizenry due to its colonial foundation. Consequently, emphasising the urgent need for decolonisation that adopt local model and further influences the design of new museums in Nigerian.