By Babafemi Ojudu
I stumbled recently on a video clip issued by the First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu. In it, she urged Nigerians who might want to celebrate her birthday by giving gifts or publishing congratulatory adverts to instead channel such funds into building a befitting library in Abuja. Some applauded the gesture, while others sneered. A friend of mine, a professor in a reputable American university, was so disgusted he concluded his criticism with this remark:
“The Awolowo and Ajasin generation are lucky they died before this era.”
Whether that judgment is fair or not is not my concern here. What unsettled me is the reminder that Abuja—after decades of existence and trillions of naira spent—still cannot boast of a dignified national library. Our Federal Capital remains a city of power and deals, almost devoid of culture.
Is it not a scandal that none of our leaders has thought it worthwhile to gift the nation a world-class library and research center? Instead, Abuja has become notorious for contracts, land allocation, and the indulgences of its elites. The heart of a nation’s capital ought to beat with knowledge, culture, and history—but Abuja beats to the rhythm of consumption and indulgence.
Save for the private initiative of Chief Mrs. Nike Okundaye, who built the Nike Art Gallery, and Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi, who established his personal art space, Abuja has no National Museum, no performing arts arena, no music school of repute. Year after year, budgets are passed, yet funds earmarked for culture and memory-keeping are diverted to satisfy the tastes of philistine civil servants and political appointees, uninterested in history or heritage.
Contrast this with Algiers, where the National Museum proudly narrates the Algerian struggle against French colonialism. When I visited years ago, I was awed by the artifacts that brought history to life, humbling every visitor with the sacrifices of those who fought for freedom.
Meanwhile, here in Nigeria, a young researcher studying our colonial past must often turn to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, or similar institutions in Europe. Our artifacts are scattered in private collections abroad. The genius of Olowe of Ise, one of Africa’s greatest carvers, is known to us largely through the British Museum and the Smithsonian. Why? Because we did not value these treasures when they were within our reach, and even now we fail to demand their return by building homes worthy of them.
Every Federal Capital Territory administrator—save for the late Major General Mamman Vatsa—has been more concerned with contracts, plots of land, and patronage for cronies and concubines than with endowing Abuja with a cultural soul. And yet, art, history, and knowledge are the very foundation upon which civilizations endure.
When I worked in the seat of government, though my official brief was political, I could not ignore this absence. I wrote memos. I convened meetings with artists and cultural thinkers. Chief Segun Odegbami even hosted us several times as we brainstormed. We pleaded for a National Museum, a world-class library, a music conservatory, a performance arena. But within the system, our voices fell on deaf ears.
Today, the First Lady’s appeal, however modest, reopens that conversation. Abuja cannot remain a capital without a soul. If we can summon billions for political campaigns and trillions for contracts of dubious value, then surely we can build enduring monuments of knowledge and culture.
The measure of a civilization is not in the size of its mansions or the opulence of its parties. It is in what it preserves for the generations yet unborn. Until Abuja houses a great national library, a museum of our history, and centers for the arts, it will remain a city of power but not of pride—a capital without memory, and therefore, without meaning.
