DiDi Museum has never been down,' Chief (Mrs.) Elizabeth Jibunoh asserts emphatically! She should know as in 2009 she spearheaded the opening of DiDi Museum Delta in Akwukwu Igbo as a special outreach branch of the parent DiDi Museum in Lagos. In fact, soon after her contributions to the conversation on what the new DiDi Museum, Lagos, sought to achieve, she was on her way to the graduation of male and female students including a traditional ruler, DiDi Museum Delta has trained in its IT Skills Acquisition Programme. She then articulates DiDi's place in the development of the Arts industry in Nigeria.According to her, 'DiDi pioneered and, is a trailblazer for most of these other art institutions in the country,' she decades, adding that 'it is important to remember that and, it is also important for us, the owners of DiDi Museum to be reminded of that; because we also have evolved. At the beginning we were all learning. In the process of us evolving in a society where the idea had not been sold; in crystallizing ourselves we were educating people. DiDi Museum became stable and consistent despite the fact that people were not challenged enough to understand the idea and did not know where we were going. We had a belief in what we were doing. It is that stability and consistency that developed the thrust in art within our society.'She postulates that DiDi, 'by bringing in the instrument of royalty, the instrument of government to use them to buttress Art people now saw that it was not a trivial thing but a serious business.' The boom in the banking industry which coincided with DiDi's long involvement in the 70s, 80s, and 90s promoting the arts resulted in the infusion of money that could now support the artistic industry. 'DiDi was pivotal in creating the idea of an art industry in Nigeria,' Mrs. Jibunoh says.The long and eventful journey of DiDi Museum Lagos in the enthusiastic promotion and education on arts and culture in Nigeria is embellished with many firsts and numerous achievements. It is a journey that started in the early sixties in London and one borne out of an infectious social crisis that seriously afflicted Chief (Dr.) Newton Jibunoh during his student days in England. 'At the British Museum in London, 'he recalled, 'I found out that the best part was the section for Nigerian Art with Ife, Benin, Nok antiquities and contemporary art. I went into a crisis because as a young man in Nigeria the missionaries who taught us the Christian religion made us believe that these artifacts were fetish and taboo. Yet, they represent so much beauty in the British Museum and, they told stories about our history I didn't know about.'Thus, started the learning process for Chief Newton Jibunoh; the founder of DiDi Museum Lagos. 'I read a lot,' he continues, 'and found out that these great works were produced in palaces and, learnt about the migration and influence they had on other cultures, like the Benin exodus to Issele-uku and Obul-ukwu and linkages to Egyptian civilization.'On his return to Nigeria as a soil engineer he was overwhelmed by the reality that his crisis and curiosity were eventually taking the form of a major project; as he became a collector of antiquities and art ' I used the initial works I collected to learn and they led to my relationship with traditional rulers,' he explains.He makes the point that when DiDi Museum started 70 to 80% of the patrons of the arts were expatriates. After the promulgation of the Decree banning the exportation of treasured art out of Nigeria, the queues of expatriates at the National Museum; seeking permits to take artworks out of Nigeria has dramatically reduced. 'This,' according to Chief Newton Jibunoh 'is because Nigerians, who now go to seek permits, have started using Nigerian art to furnish their home, offices and to give out as gifts abroad. This is why today you have artists who are millionaires. In the 60s I could go to the studio of Bruce Onabrakpeya, Erabor Emokpae, Wagbunje and Nelson-Cole in Benin and they were literarily giving away their works for next to nothing. Today, these works of art are going for millions. We have considerably reduced the number of artworks leaving Nigeria because Nigerians now appreciate them. That is the story of DIDI Museum because it is very nice that art galleries are springing up and we need a lot more. We are not in competition. We see them as being complimentary to the original ideals of DiDi Museum'Is DiDi Museum then an Art Gallery' 'Today contemporary is tomorrow's antiquity' he clarifies. 'The museum is for preservation, promotion and education. You go to a gallery to look at art and possibly buy. In a museum you go to get education, to see how the different stages of our development are being presented and you also see how history is being promoted.'Elizabeth Jibunoh adds that, 'Even though DiDi is a Musuem of contemporary African art, by virtue of its collection of antiquities of Nigeria which the National Museum ideally should be holding them for Nigeria; DiDi has certification as a museum that allows it to hold Nigerians artifacts in trust for future generations of Nigerians. Where the overlay comes in is that we also use our space for gallery-oriented functions. We would invite artists to come and we will clear our antiquities to allow them to use the same space as gallery, during which period of time they are allowed to sell their works. But the works of DiDi Museum are never on sale because in any museum the works are never on sale!'According to Newton Jibunoh 'that's where the education comes in. we are into promotion, preservation and education. In the educational aspect we not only give space to the artist we promote them. A lot of well known Nigerians artists started from the DiDi Museum. A lot of the artists we have established will first come for an audition because we have many diverse interests we want to please by giving them different types of education. We want to know what artists are offering and they have to come with a theme, an education and when they don't have we help them. We sometimes give them a year to go and research into what they want to present. They must have a structure and story they want to tell with their art; something to educate the audience'What are the features of the new DiDi Museum and how do they extend the original start-up principles' Chief Newton describes the new edifice as 'an architectural treasure in designing.' Why so' 'Because we have taken into consideration sustainability, something that will stand the test of time something that will be remembered for years to come. This was where we believe a new life has been given to Nigerian and African arts. The traditional rulers of Nigeria played a major role. Without them it would have been almost impossible. Because I had to travel to every one of them, writing letters and was granted interviews. The Emir of Kano I sat down with for days, the Ooni of Ife for days, Oba of Benin for days. No one else can boast of these interactions, because these are the custodians. They are coming for the re-opening. I don't know about the Oba of Benin because he doesn't travel much anymore. If he is not coming he will send somebody.'Surely there must be same rivalries between the kingdoms of these Nigerian traditional rulers given the discrepancies in their legend of origin and the role of the Western world in perpetuating this perception on originality and influences between Ife and Benin bronzes in particular. Jibunoh is pragmatic about this issue. 'DiDi has hosted a lecture on the rivalry' he points out. 'On who is superior, who is the original Oduduwa. The Ife people want to believe they gave Benin their Oba and of course, the Benin will tell their own version of how the son of an Oba was sent to Ife and later returned to them. DiDi Museum in encouraging this debate is not going to do it because we want to establish the original Ododuwa. We do it because of the education Nigerians can get from it. Listen to the debate and go away and form your own opinion. Because I have listened to both sides argue, it has given me a lot of education. That was why people were shocked the Ooni, Oba, and Emir came to DiDi Musuem. The four of them including The Obi of Onitsha were at the DiDi Museum together with the First Lady then, Mariam Babangida.'DiDi is not an NGO because the concept of NGOs wasn't around when they started; but they eventually want DiDi to be one. Meanwhile it is registered as a limited guarantee. What did certification entail' 'We had to seek a license from the National Museum to be able to go by the name Museum and to be able to store national treasures as the National Museum has the rights of keeping our national treasures and, we are the only certified institution outside the National Museum.'Have the antiquities in DiDi Museum been carbon-dated' 'We've done some carbon-dating, 'Newton Jibunoh explains. 'Carbon-dating can only be done in the United Kingdom. We were lucky that in 1975 the British Caledonian Airways decided to celebrate Nigeria's 15th independence anniversary with original Nigerian artworks in London. They came to us and we had to apply to the National Museum for permit to take 50 of our artworks to London for a period of two months for the exhibition. The insurance people insisted on having most of the works carbon-dated. So we came to some understanding with the National Museum and had some of them carbon-dated in London before we returned them to Nigeria.'There will be many other programmes that will happen in the new DiDi Museum apart from the preservation and presentation of Nigerian and African art. One such programme will be 'Research and development of the heritage art of Nigeria.' Describing the period between the productions of early antiquities; one of thousands of years as 'the missing link', to the present day Jibunoh says that under this programme 'traditional historians will be invited to debate and unravel this important missing link about our development and history.'Eventually the Museum plans to do special exhibitions. 'There will be a time when we do nothing but antiquities; we can call it The Treasures of Nigeria or The History of Nigeria or The Migration of the People of Benin or Ife and, we will bring the relevant artifacts that will deal with that particular subject and display them and write on them. We may decide it will be contemporary Nigerian Art featuring The Masters like Ben Enwonwu, Bruce Onabrakpeya, Nelson-Cole, Nwangboje and others. We have enough of these works to thrill the eye and educate the people.' Jibunoh says.The Museum also plans to produce postcards of notable works that people can come and buy with slogans like 'welcome to Lagos, welcome to Ikoyi, but with the legal implications of copyright sorted out. In the area of Book presentation and poetry reading, 'there is a need to counter the idea of glamorous book launching during which the author makes his money but which I believe contributes to Nigerian not reading books,' he says. 'Rather, the Museum will do book presentations where the author will read, to tell a story and let the audience know what inspired him and tell them where he or she is coming from.'Nath Mayo Adediran a former Director of the National Museum and curator of two recent huge exhibitions Nigeria @50 Art Exhibition and Nigeria-Austria Lace Exhibition in Abuja, Vienna and Lagos, is the consultant to DiDi Museum and is currently working on a year ' long programme of events for DiDi as from its opening this month.The other programmes lined up are Dance, Drama and story-telling, Book readings, Lectures on heritage and contemporary Art, Jazz evenings and auctions. The space will also be available for small conferencing, board meetings and training.The formal opening of the new DiDi Museum is on Friday July 13 and there will be an exhibition of Photographs taken by Kelechi Amadi-Obi during Chief Jibunoh's desert expedition across the Sahara to Europe in 2008; to draw a relationship between the environment and the arts.
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