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On Okorocha and Mbari Cultural Centre


There is absolutely a missing link between the value we place on historical artifacts and their preservation in Nigeria. When we advocate the preservation of heritage sites or defend them in the midst of inimicality, we do not justify any anti-human activity that is associated with them. But what we insist upon is that human history is both accomplishment and failure: that history is incomplete without their preservation as professed by Prof. Wole Soyinka.

Isn’t it ironical to say that just some weeks after the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Muhammed, decried the protection of Nigerian heritage sites as the backbone of the nation’s history, a big catastrophe happened in the South-East part of Nigeria: Governor Rochas Okorocha demolished the Mbari Cultural Centre which holds the etymological anthology of Igbo culture in visual forms and preserves the voices of their ancestors. Why would a political leader who is looked up to as the ambassador of the nation display such a genocidal attitude?


When Soyinka held his lecture, “Culture at Risk” at the University of Benin in September, he focused on religion as an enemy to culture. He stated that religion had raised an army of iconoclasts whose desire was to burn or smash all man-made objects that did not conform to some pre-conceived ideological precepts. This prompts the question, is Okorocha fighting against culture?


When the Boko Haram insurgency attacked the Sukur Cultural Landscape which is an ancient settlement with a recorded history of iron smelting technology, flourishing trade, and strong political institution dating back to the 16th century in the North-East state of Adamawa, one of the UNESCO world heritage sites, there were mixed reactions from personalities whose sources of livelihood were on the cultural field.

Yet, the destruction of the Mbari Cultural Centre by the Okorocha-led government has created another episode in the attack of historical sites in Nigeria and Africa, what has happened? Has he been brought to question? No.

The Article 4 of the UNESCO Convention concerning the protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage sites (1972) states that the duty of ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage sites belongs primarily to the state in which they are situated. With all sincerity, this recent anathematisation of heritage sites does not conform to these rules perhaps when it is from the government.

This is another scene that justifies the Nigerian definition of justice as synonymous to lynching, mob attack and jungle justice where the commoners are subdued into submission. On the contrary, betrayers of public trust and treasure looters receive presidential pardons and continue walking freely on the streets. If this genocidal exercise were to be done by a commoner, it is certain that he would miss his comfortable home that day.

Interestingly, Nigerians await the aftermath of the demolition of Mbari Cultural Centre by Okorocha. All eyes are on the government. God bless Nigeria.
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