1. Introduction

In 1960 the Malian scholar Amadou Hampâté Bâ told the General Conference of UNESCO that in Africa, when an old man dies, a library burns.¹ The sentence has become a proverb of heritage policy because it names a truth that the architecture of the modern museum was not designed to capture. The museum as it developed in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a house of objects. Its methods, of acquisition, cataloguing, conservation and display, assumed that the heritage worth keeping could be held in the hand and placed behind glass.

Nigeria’s heritage does include objects of the first rank: the terracottas of Nok, the bronzes of Igbo-Ukwu, the heads of Ife and the court art of Benin are among the great achievements of human creativity. But the greater part of what Nigerians have made, known and believed exists in another form. It is carried in more than 500 languages, in the 256 odu of the Ifa corpus, in the drum language of the dundun, in the choreography of masquerades, in the techniques of weavers and dyers, in recipes, in the rules of age grades and in the praise poetry of court musicians. This heritage is alive. It changes as it is transmitted, and it survives only as long as people practise it.

This paper sets out why UNESCO REF has established a museum dedicated to that living heritage, what problems the museum is designed to address, and on what principles it operates. Its argument is that a museum for Nigeria in the twenty-first century must be as concerned with people and knowledge as with objects, must be accountable to the communities whose heritage it presents, and must be built to last.

2. Background: museums, collecting and heritage in Nigeria

The history of heritage institutions in Nigeria is inseparable from the history of colonial collecting. From the late nineteenth century, objects left Nigeria in large numbers through trade, missionary activity, scientific expeditions and military force. The British attack on Benin City in February 1897 is the most notorious case: the palace was looted and thousands of objects were dispersed to museums and private collections in Europe and North America.² The report commissioned by the French presidency from Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy in 2018 estimated that the great majority of sub-Saharan Africa’s material cultural heritage is held outside the continent.³

Within Nigeria, the institutional response began in the colonial period. Kenneth Murray, an art teacher who became the first Surveyor of Antiquities, campaigned for the protection of Nigerian heritage; the Nigerian Antiquities Service was created in 1943. The Esie Museum in present-day Kwara State, built to house a remarkable collection of soapstone figures, opened in 1945 and is often described as the first museum in Nigeria. The Jos Museum followed in 1952 under Bernard Fagg, and the National Museum in Lagos opened in 1957.⁴ After independence, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments was established in 1979 as the federal authority for museums, antiquities and monuments.

These institutions have preserved invaluable collections and trained generations of Nigerian heritage professionals. They have also faced chronic underfunding, security problems, theft and deterioration of buildings, while the public they serve has changed. Nigeria today has more than 220 million people and one of the youngest populations on earth, with a median age below twenty.⁵ Most young Nigerians will never visit a national museum, but almost all of them encounter culture through a phone. At the same time, Nigerian music, film, fashion and food have achieved global reach, creating an unprecedented demand for knowledge about the traditions on which they draw.

3. Conceptual framework: from objects to living heritage

Three developments in heritage thought frame the museum’s approach. The first is the expansion of the definition of heritage itself. The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, adopted in 2003 and ratified by Nigeria in 2005, defines intangible heritage as the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities recognise as part of their heritage, transmitted from generation to generation and constantly recreated.⁶ Its logic differs from that of the 1972 World Heritage Convention: it does not ask whether heritage is of outstanding universal value, but whether a community recognises it as its own, and it measures success by transmission rather than preservation of a fixed form.

The second development is the redefinition of the museum. In 2022 the International Council of Museums adopted a new definition describing the museum as a permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage, operating ethically and professionally with the participation of communities.⁷ The inclusion of intangible heritage and community participation in the core definition marks a decisive shift from the museum as a treasury to the museum as a public institution of knowledge and dialogue.

The third development is critical heritage scholarship. Laurajane Smith has described an authorised heritage discourse through which experts and states define what counts as heritage and how it should be valued, often marginalising the understandings of communities.⁸ Christina Kreps has documented indigenous forms of curation, showing that many societies had their own systems for keeping, displaying and transmitting valued things long before the Western museum arrived.⁹ In the African context, Jan Vansina demonstrated that oral tradition is a historical source that can be studied with rigour, provided its conventions and purposes are understood.¹⁰

Together these developments suggest that a museum of Nigerian heritage should not treat communities merely as sources of information, but as custodians, co-authors and beneficiaries; should treat oral and performed knowledge as evidence alongside written and archaeological sources; and should present traditions as living and plural rather than as relics with a single correct version.

4. The problem: five deficits

The condition of Nigerian heritage can be described through five deficits. Each is serious on its own; together they threaten the transmission of knowledge between generations.

4.1 Dispersal

A large share of Nigeria’s movable heritage is held outside the country. The Digital Benin project, launched in 2022, documented more than 5,000 objects from the Kingdom of Benin in over 130 institutions.¹¹ Similar dispersal affects Nok terracottas, Ife and Igbo-Ukwu material and ethnographic collections. Returns are now taking place, but they will be partial and slow. In the meantime, most Nigerians have no access to the objects that embody their history.

4.2 Disappearance

Living heritage disappears when transmission fails. Many of Nigeria’s smaller languages have few young speakers. Crafts such as sanyan silk weaving, specialist drumming repertoires and ritual knowledge depend on apprenticeships that fewer young people undertake. Insecurity has disrupted communities in the North-East and elsewhere, interrupting festivals and displacing custodians. Archaeological sites have been destroyed by looting and development. Every year, knowledge that was never recorded is lost.

4.3 Distortion

Where reliable information is scarce, unreliable information fills the space. Online content about Nigerian traditions frequently repeats unsourced claims, exaggerates antiquity, confuses one community’s practice with another’s, or presents living traditions in exoticising terms. Such distortion affects how Nigerians understand themselves and how the world understands Nigeria. The remedy is not censorship but authoritative, referenced and correctable knowledge that is freely available.

4.4 Disconnection

Urbanisation, migration and changes in education have separated many young Nigerians from the traditions of their communities. Diaspora families may lose language and custom within a generation. A museum that exists only in a building in one city cannot reach them. Access must go where young people are.

4.5 Dispossession

Nigerian culture generates great value in global markets for music, film, fashion, design, tourism and pharmaceuticals, but that value often accrues to intermediaries rather than to the communities whose knowledge it draws upon. Traditional medicine raises concerns about biopiracy; textile designs and musical forms are copied without acknowledgement. Heritage institutions have a role in documenting provenance and ensuring that communities are recognised and share in benefits.

5. Rationale: why this museum, and why now

The five deficits suggest the functions a contemporary heritage institution must perform. It must reunite dispersed knowledge, at least digitally; record what is disappearing; correct distortion with evidence; connect with young and diaspora audiences; and return value to communities. The UNESCO REF museum is designed around these functions.

A digital museum is justified first by reach. It can be used by a student in Maiduguri, a teacher in Enugu, a researcher in São Paulo and a Nigerian family in London at no cost to them. Second, it is justified by speed: documentation can begin immediately, without waiting for buildings. Third, it is justified by the nature of the heritage itself. Songs, oral literature, performance and craft processes are better represented through text, audio, image and video than through objects in cases.

The museum is also justified by Nigeria’s international commitments. As a State Party to the 2003 Convention, Nigeria has undertaken to identify and inventory intangible heritage with the participation of communities.¹² Sustainable Development Goal target 4.7 calls for education that promotes appreciation of cultural diversity and culture’s contribution to sustainable development, and target 11.4 calls for strengthened efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage.¹³ Aspiration 5 of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 envisions an Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, values and ethics.¹⁴ Civil society institutions can contribute substantially to these goals.

Finally, the museum is justified by UNESCO REF’s mandate. The Federation’s work in education, literacy and intergenerational knowledge transfer makes heritage a natural extension of its mission: literacy includes cultural literacy, and knowledge transfer includes the knowledge held by elders. The museum connects these commitments.

6. Design principles and their limits

The museum operates on seven principles, which are published so that users and partners can hold it to account.

Evidence. Every Refclopedia entry rests on published scholarship, official documentation or the recorded testimony of recognised custodians, and lists its references. Where scholars disagree, entries present the debate.

Consent. Knowledge shared by custodians is published only with their consent. Restricted knowledge, including the initiatory teachings of societies such as Ekpe, is not published. This follows the CARE principles for indigenous data governance, which emphasise collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility and ethics.¹⁵

Plurality. Traditions vary between communities, faiths and generations. Entries record variation and use local names in original languages.

Openness. Core Refclopedia content is free to read. Data is structured to be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable, in line with the FAIR principles, wherever consent allows.¹⁶

Provenance. The museum does not buy, sell or value objects, and does not promote objects whose provenance suggests illicit removal except to document trafficking and restitution.

Correction. Anyone may propose a correction. Proposals are reviewed and accepted changes are dated.

Benefit. A fixed share of the museum’s income is returned to custodian communities, as set out in Museum Paper No. 2.

These principles also define the museum’s limits. Digital access is not restitution: a photograph of a Benin plaque does not return the plaque, and digital projects must not be used as an argument against physical return.¹⁷ Nor can documentation substitute for transmission. A recording of a drummer preserves a performance, but only an apprentice preserves the tradition. The museum therefore supports transmission directly, through community benefit, education and partnerships, rather than treating the archive as an end in itself.

7. Nigeria in the international heritage record

Nigeria’s inscriptions on UNESCO lists illustrate both the richness of its heritage and the gap between that richness and international recognition. Two sites are on the World Heritage List and four elements are on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Select a row to open its entry.

The disparity between six inscriptions and a heritage of more than 250 ethnic groups and 500 languages is not a measure of value but of capacity: nominations require documentation, management plans and community consultation. Referenced documentation of the kind this museum produces is a necessary foundation for future nominations, including sites on Nigeria’s Tentative List such as the Ancient Kano City Walls and Associated Sites.

Legal and institutional milestones

1. 1943

   Nigerian Antiquities Service established.

2. 1945

   Esie Museum opens, often described as Nigeria’s first museum.

3. 1957

   National Museum, Lagos, opens.

4. 1972

   Nigeria becomes party to the 1970 Convention on illicit trafficking of cultural property.

5. 1974

   Nigeria ratifies the World Heritage Convention.

6. 1979

   National Commission for Museums and Monuments established.

7. 2005

   Nigeria ratifies the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

8. 2008

   Nigeria ratifies the 2005 Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

9. 2022

   National Language Policy adopted; Germany agrees to transfer ownership of Benin objects.

10. 2023

    Presidential declaration vests ownership of returned Benin objects in the Oba of Benin.

8. Development of the museum

The museum is being built in phases, each adding depth while keeping every earlier hall live.

1. Phase I: the five halls

   2026, completed

   Culture, Tradition, Heritage, Features and Archive, and Music Heritage, with six zone profiles and a music archive across five eras from 1900 to the present.

2. Phase II: the scholarly edition

   September 2026, this edition

   Six regional studies, the Refclopedia of Nigerian Heritage with 35 referenced entries, a revised music register, Museum Papers 1 and 2, and a factual review of existing content.

3. Phase III: membership and field archive

   2027, planned

   Membership opens. Field interviews with traditional rulers, officials and custodians, and commissioned research, enter the archive.

4. Phase IV: a continental network

   2027 onward, planned

   Community contributions and oral history recording, partner institutions across Africa, and open educational licensing of entries for schools.

9. Policy implications

The argument of this paper has implications for every actor responsible for Nigeria’s heritage. The five deficits cannot be addressed by a single institution; they require coordinated action by government, traditional institutions, educators, the private sector, development partners and communities. The following recommendations are addressed to each.

9.1 Federal Government

The Federal Ministry responsible for culture and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments should lead the preparation of a national inventory of intangible cultural heritage, as required by the 2003 Convention, in partnership with civil society institutions. Funding for the national museums should be increased and linked to measurable outcomes in conservation, research and public access. A national policy on the care of returned objects should define custody, access and conservation standards. Mother-tongue instruction under the National Language Policy should be resourced with teachers and materials, since language is the first vessel of heritage.

9.2 State governments

States should integrate heritage into planning law, protecting historic districts, earthworks and sacred groves from destruction. They should support community museums and festivals, and include local history and culture in state curricula. States with sites on the Tentative List should prepare management plans and nomination dossiers.

9.3 Traditional institutions

Palaces and councils of traditional rulers should work with heritage institutions to document regalia, archives and oral histories, and should set clear protocols on what may be recorded and published. They can champion intergenerational transmission by involving young people in festivals and palace activities.

9.4 Schools and universities

Schools should teach Nigerian heritage as a subject grounded in evidence, using regional studies and referenced sources. Universities should strengthen departments of archaeology, history, linguistics, music and museum studies, and partner with communities on documentation. Student projects can record elders and contribute to national archives.

9.5 The private sector and creative industries

Companies should support heritage through patronage and partnerships that respect editorial independence. Creative industries that draw on traditions should acknowledge sources and share benefits with communities. Tax incentives for donations to approved cultural institutions would encourage such support.

9.6 Development partners

International partners should include culture in development programmes, particularly in education, peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery. Funding should build Nigerian capacity rather than substitute for it, and should support long-term institutions as well as short-term projects.

9.7 Communities and the diaspora

Communities are the first custodians of heritage. They should be supported to record and transmit their knowledge, to decide how it is shared and to benefit from its use. The diaspora can contribute knowledge, funding and networks, and can help young Nigerians abroad remain connected to their heritage.

10. Conclusion

Hampâté Bâ’s library is still burning, but it need not burn unrecorded. Nigeria has the scholarship, the custodians and the creative energy to build a heritage institution equal to its heritage. What has been lacking is an institution that combines scholarly rigour with community authority, global reach with local benefit, and ambition with the financial discipline to endure.

The UNESCO REF museum is an attempt to build such an institution. It will be judged by whether its entries are accurate, whether communities recognise themselves in it, whether young Nigerians use it, and whether it still exists and is still growing a generation from now. Museum Paper No. 2 sets out how the last of these conditions will be met.

1. Purpose

A museum is by definition a permanent institution. Its value compounds over time: an archive of recordings made in 2026 will be far more valuable in 2076, when the performers are gone and the practices have changed. That value is realised only if the institution survives. Many heritage projects in Africa and elsewhere have produced excellent work and then disappeared when a single grant ended, leaving websites offline and recordings on inaccessible drives.

The purpose of this framework is to prevent that outcome. It commits the museum to a funding model designed from the outset for permanence, independence and fairness, and it sets measurable targets against which progress can be judged.

2. Economic rationale

2.1 Heritage as a public good

Much of the value of heritage is not captured by any market. David Throsby distinguishes the economic value of cultural assets from their cultural value, and identifies non-market values including existence value (the benefit people derive from knowing heritage exists), option value (the possibility of future use) and bequest value (the benefit of passing heritage to future generations).¹ Knowledge published in an open Refclopedia is also non-rival: one person’s use does not diminish another’s. Goods with these characteristics tend to be undersupplied by markets, which is the classic justification for public, philanthropic and institutional support.

2.2 The cost disease

William Baumol and William Bowen observed that the performing arts suffer from a structural problem: their productivity cannot rise as fast as that of manufacturing, because a string quartet still requires four musicians, while their wages must keep pace with the wider economy.² Heritage documentation shares this feature. Recording an elder, verifying a history or translating an oral text takes human time that technology cannot greatly compress. The museum’s costs will therefore tend to rise faster than general prices, and its funding model must anticipate this rather than assume that efficiency will close the gap.

2.3 Diversification and permanence

Research on non-profit organisations indicates that diversified revenue is associated with lower volatility, since the failure of one source is less damaging when others exist.³ Endowments serve a related function. Henry Hansmann argued that endowments protect institutions against fluctuations in income and preserve their capacity to serve future generations, a rationale especially strong where an institution’s mission spans generations.⁴ The museum’s framework combines both: a diversified set of revenue streams, and an endowment that grows over time.

2.4 Culture as economy

UNCTAD’s Creative Economy Outlook documents the growth of creative goods and services in international trade.⁵ Nigeria’s music and film industries are among the most visible in the world. These industries draw on heritage but rarely reinvest in it. The museum’s licensing, education and tourism streams are designed to create a channel through which some of the value of the creative economy returns to the knowledge on which it depends.

3. Cost structure

The museum’s recurring costs fall into six areas. Their character, whether fixed or variable, determines how they are financed: fixed costs should be met from stable income, variable project costs from project funding.

4. Revenue architecture

The museum draws on eight revenue streams. Core Refclopedia content remains free to the public; revenue is generated from depth, services and partnerships rather than from charging for basic access to knowledge.

5. Target income mix, 2027 to 2031

In its early years the museum will rely heavily on grants and patronage. The framework sets targets for a progressive shift toward earned and recurring income and endowment returns, so that dependence on any single source falls over time. The rule adopted is that no single stream should exceed 35 percent of income by the third year or 25 percent by the fifth.

Targets are policy objectives reviewed annually, not forecasts of income.

6. Allocation policy

Unrestricted income is allocated according to fixed shares, so that the museum’s priorities are visible and cannot drift. Restricted gifts are spent only on the purpose the donor specifies.

• 35% Field documentation and research
• 20% Digitisation and preservation
• 15% Community benefit share
• 15% Education and public programmes
• 10% Operations, governance and audit
• 5% Endowment reserve

The largest share goes to documentation and research because that is the museum’s irreplaceable function: knowledge not recorded now may be lost. Digitisation and preservation receive a fifth, since an archive that is not preserved is not an archive. The community benefit share is set at 15 percent to make benefit-sharing a structural commitment rather than a discretionary gesture. Operations are capped at 10 percent to keep the institution lean, and 5 percent is transferred annually to the endowment to build permanence from the first year.

7. Endowment and reserves

Endowment. The Heritage Endowment Fund will preserve its capital in real terms. Annual spending from the fund will be limited to four percent of its average value over the preceding three years, a rule widely used by endowed institutions to balance present needs with the preservation of purchasing power. Because the naira has experienced significant volatility, the investment policy will diversify across currencies and asset classes within a conservative risk profile, overseen by an investment committee with independent members.

Reserves. The museum will build an operating reserve equal to six months of fixed costs by the end of its third year, so that it can continue essential functions through a funding interruption.

8. Community benefit-sharing

The 15 percent community benefit share is pooled and disbursed to custodian communities, guilds and families whose knowledge is documented, through projects they choose. Examples include apprenticeship stipends for young weavers or drummers, restoration of shrines and regalia, support for festivals, and community archives. In addition, at least 30 percent of net licensing income attributable to a specific community’s knowledge is paid to that community.

These commitments follow the principle of fair and equitable benefit-sharing established in international instruments such as the Nagoya Protocol, and the CARE principles for indigenous data governance.⁶ Disbursements are recorded and published in the annual report.

9. Risk register

10. Performance indicators

Progress is measured against indicators reported every year.

11. Governance and reporting

The museum publishes an annual report setting out income by source, expenditure by area, benefit-sharing disbursements, performance against indicators and audited accounts. Accounts are examined by an independent auditor. Conflicts of interest between funders, authors and the museum are declared and recorded. UNESCO REF never charges fees for partnership applications; any request for payment is fraudulent and should be reported.

12. Policy recommendations for government and partners

The sustainability of heritage institutions is not only a matter for the institutions themselves. Public policy shapes the environment in which they raise and spend money. Experience in other countries shows that a supportive policy framework can multiply private and philanthropic investment in culture. The following recommendations would strengthen the financing of heritage in Nigeria.

12.1 Incentives for cultural philanthropy

Donations by individuals and companies to approved cultural and heritage institutions should attract clear and generous tax relief, with simple procedures for approval. Many countries use such incentives to mobilise private support for museums and heritage, and Nigeria’s growing corporate sector and diaspora represent substantial untapped potential.

12.2 Matching funds and endowment support

Government and development partners can use matching grants to encourage endowment building, contributing a proportion of every naira raised from private sources. Such schemes reward institutions for diversifying income and build long-term capital.

12.3 Heritage in the creative economy

Policies for the creative economy should recognise heritage as its foundation. A small levy or voluntary contribution from commercial uses of traditional cultural expressions, collected and distributed transparently, could fund community safeguarding. Strengthening collective management of music royalties would also support the musicians whose work forms part of the national heritage.

12.4 Tourism revenue and communities

Where heritage sites and festivals attract visitors, a defined share of public revenue from tourism should be returned to host communities and site conservation. Clear agreements between states, traditional authorities and communities can prevent disputes and build trust.

12.5 Public funding linked to outcomes

Public funding for museums and heritage institutions should be predictable, multi-year and linked to published outcomes, such as collections documented, visitors and learners reached and communities supported. This gives institutions the stability to plan while ensuring accountability.

12.6 International cooperation

Nigeria should make fuller use of international instruments, including UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund, and should negotiate restitution agreements that include support for conservation, training and public access in Nigeria.