What holds Nigeria together: a guide at the Unity Museum.

Filmed by We Them Media · Enugu

Nigeria at 65, from inside the National Museum of Unity in Enugu. A guide explains the idea the building was made for. The British “merged different ethnic groups to form the Nigerian state,” and at the time “not even the British believed that Nigeria would last as a united political entity.” It did: “against all odds, against all predictions, Nigeria stayed together,” through a civil war.

So historians and archaeologists went looking further back. “Is there an unseen bond? Is there something holding us together that we are not seeing?” They went into the past of every ethnic group. “They started collecting artifacts from all these ethnic groups. They now brought them together.” And they did not simply display them. The objects are placed side by side, so that a Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba visitor sees things from their own past next to everyone else’s, some of them 800 years old, and sees that “before Christianity was introduced in Southern Nigeria” and “Before Islam was introduced in Northern Nigeria” the groups already shared a great deal. “So that’s the idea behind this museum.” Then the tour begins. “So you are welcome Let’s go.”

Published on Independence Day. The transcript below is from the original audio.

Transcript

Transcribed with Whisper from the original audio, so nothing is masked. Names corrected. Published in full, as spoken, so it can be read, searched and quoted. Search every transcript →

0:12So that was where they came up with the idea of how this country would not call Nigeria. Because they worked as a large colony, they merged different ethnic groups to form the Nigerian state. And as at the time of this merger, not even the British believed that Nigeria would last as a united political entity. But against all odds, against all predictions, Nigeria stayed together. 100 years after my commission, and they even survived a civil war. So, but historians and archaeologists, they started looking further back. Is there an unseen bond? Is there something holding us together that we are not seeing? So, what they did was that they went back into the historical parts of all these ethnic groups. They started collecting the material remains. They started collecting artifacts from all these ethnic groups. They now brought them together.

1:07They didn’t just display them in the museum they call Unity Museum They juxtaposition them in such a way that if you come, if you are Alsa, you are Ibu, you are Yoruba You will see things from your past Some of those objects date as, not as 800 years old So you now see that before Christianity was introduced in Southern Nigeria Before Islam was introduced in Northern Nigeria That all these techniques, they have a lot of things they share together So that’s the idea behind this museum So you are welcome Let’s go

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