NAN-ELS-5
Museum
By Taiye Baiyerohi
Lagos, July, 11, 2017 (NAN) An international scholar, Prof. Folarin Shyllon, on Tuesday appealed to the Federal Government to invest more in the nation’s museums and monuments so that they could compete favourably with their international peers.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Shyllon is the current Vice-Chairman, UNESCO’s Subsidiary Committee of the Meeting of State Parties to the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
He told NAN in Lagos that part of the funds from government could be used to renovate and equip the nation’s museums and monuments so that visitors and tourists could visit them.
Shyllon said that through such visits, the museums and monuments would be generating revenue into the government’s treasuries.
The don said that the National Museum in Lagos now has a better mileage to showcase its restored treasured objects after the Federal Government had repatriated some of the country’s stolen artifacts from abroad.
NAN reports that some artifacts were repatriated from Florida, Boston in the United States of America and Owode, a border town between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin,
According to him, the museum can successfully drive the nation’s tourism sector if properly groomed, maintained and renovated like those in the developed countries.
He advised the management of the national museum to properly preserve and maintain the objects.
“They should be kept in conducive environments where they will attract both local and international tourists,’’ he said.
He also advised the management of the museum to ensure proper documentation of the artifacts to guide against theft.
He said that the museum’s management should install security tools such as the CCTV cameras within its complex to monitor development there.
Shyllon also advised its members of staff to always take inventories of available artifacts, antics and antiquities regularly. (NAN)
PTB/BOLA/PAD
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Edited by Bola Akingbehin/Peter Dada