DIDI Museum AT 40: Management rolls out programmes to celebrate four decades of art, culture and heritage promotion
To announce the formal berth of the Museum in Asaba, Delta State
Opening of the Nelson Mandela Garden & Resorts
The theme of celebration: NO ART NO HISTORY
DIDI MUSEUM, the famous art, culture and heritage promotion centre in Victoria Island, Lagos, was 40 this past May 11, and in its characteristic “quiet” nature, it neither screamed nor rolled out loud drums of celebration.
Founded in May 1983 by Dr Newton Jibunoh in memory of his sister Edith Jibunoh, who died at an early age, DIDI Museum is recorded as the first private museum in Lagos.
Sitting quietly but regally on Plot 175 Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island-Lagos, DIDI Museum has indeed, been the home of, and nurturer of the careers of many artists and culture workers, who often identified themselves as either “DIDI Artists” or “DIDI Museum Children” — because of the mutual affection and familial link they have shared with the facility over the decades.
To commemorate the epoch, however, the management has designed a three-pronged programme that would remind the art-producing and consuming community and indeed the general public, of its contribution to the Nigerian and African culture sectors over these four decades.
The celebration, deliberately designed to kick off on May 18, celebrated every year as ‘World Museum Day’ as designated by UNESCO, is essentially to announce the new direction the museum intends to pursue in the coming decades of its existence. In particular, it would announce the formal berth of the Museum in Delta State, the home state and current base of the 85-year-old founder.
Significantly too, the celebration will also mark the formal opening of the Nelson Mandela Gardens & Resorts, which is one of the monuments declared by the Mandela Foundation to commemorate Nelson Mandela’s legacy. The Resorts provides recreational facilities for children, a mini zoo, semi Olympic sized swimming pool, a lawn tennis court, a bar & restaurants and a 30-room lodging facility which is located inside the Asaba International Airport, and; which will be the new home of the DIDI Museum going forward. The facility will be formally introduced by Dewald Kruger, Managing Director of Silk Road Hospitality, the new managing partner of the Resort.
Didi Museum in History:
On May 11 1983, DIDI Museum was officially inaugurated within the private house of the founder, Dr Newton Jibunoh in Victoria Island. The inaugural exhibition featured works by Kenny Adamson and Adamu Ajunam, and was graced by an estimated over 1200 guests.
Before its birth, there had been few indigenous efforts at patronage for the visual arts, especially to focus on the heritage art but also on the contemporary.
At the epochal event, Dr Ekpo Eyo, the then Director General of the National Museum and Monuments, stated, that the birth of the museum was “an excellent first attempt of this kind of venture by a private citizen.”
DIDI Museum hosted an exhibition to commemorate Nigeria’s 25th independence anniversary in London in 1985, which was sponsored by British Airways. The exhibition was unveiled by the then Emir of Kano, the Late Alhaji Ado Bayero.
The primary objectives of the Museum at birth were captured thus:
- To serve as a forum for the research and preservation of arts and culture and the exhibition of contemporary Nigerian Arts
- To discover and contribute to the arts
- To serve the young artists not only for the exhibition of artworks but also to provide a forum for the maintenance research and preservation of art.
Over the years, the overall mission of DIDI Museum has evolved and now includes in addition to the above
- To create a market for local collectors that would sustain the art market in the long run
- To promote an environment where students can be tutored in appreciating their heritage
- To promote our cultural heritage with the provision of programs and events
- To contribute to the appreciation of poetry and literary
Moving to Asaba
The big announcement of the 40th-anniversary celebration is the fact that the Museum is extending to Delta State, which is the retirement home and current location of its founder, Dr Newton Jibunoh. The museum will be located in the Nelson Mandela Gardens And Resort, sited on the premises of the Asaba International Airport. This would be the second time the museum would be attempting to locate itself in Delta State. A few years ago, it opened a branch in Akwukwu-Igbo, the hometown of Dr Jibunoh, located a few kilometres from Asaba. In the earlier move, the museum management had held workshops on several areas of art making, including the production of textile materials peculiar to the people of the Delta.
In its new home, however, the museum would eventually be resident in a Convention Centre, being built as part of the sprawling Nelson Mandela Gardens & Resort
About Dr Jibunoh
Popularly known as the ‘Desert Warrior’, Dr Newton Jibunoh, has crossed the Sahara Desert (London to Lagos) three times. He embarked upon two solo expeditions in 1966 and 2000 and the third expedition in 2008 in the company of five other desert warriors. He was the former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Costain (West Africa) and later became the Chairman where He retired in 2006.
He is the Founder of Nigeria’s foremost environmental non-governmental organisation, Fight Against Desert Encroachment (FADE), which is focused on combating desertification and its fall-outs such as climate change, poverty, migration and conflict.
Specifically trained in the Science of Desertification from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negez, Israel, he is an internationally acclaimed speaker and has represented Nigeria in a number of Climate Change summits and conferences such as Bangkok, Copenhagen, and Cancun.
He is the Emeritus Ambassador of the Environment for Lagos and a lover of Arts. He is also the Founder of DIDI Museum, Nigeria’s first private museum which was founded on 13 May 1983.
