While onboard a Calabar-bound aircraft, I overheard the discussion of a young man and his colleagues.
“I can’t wait to get to Calabar, the babes are so wonderful,” the young man said. This elicited laughter from the others. All through, their discussion centred on ‘Calabar women’.
However, the city tagged Canaan Land, even though it is blessed with many beautiful damsels, is beyond the women. Calabar exhumes history that most visitors are usually too much in a hurry to explore. Beyond the resorts, the hospitable people and their exciting culture, the annual 32-day Calabar Christmas Festival, the peaceful and evergreen environment that attracts visitors all-year-round, the city of Calabar is history all round.
Next time in Calabar, find time to visit and spend a little time at the Old Residency Building to recall the past, why it is affecting the present and how it may shape the future.
The Old Residency Building stands tall on the Consular Hill overlooking the cool moving Calabar River on its long journey to the Atlantic Ocean. It is one monument that has over time become a phenomenon on its own.
Yet, it has been on the hill for about 130 years and still standing with the scorching sun having little or no impact on its aesthetics. Designed, built in Glasgow and shipped over in pieces, the Old Residency Building in Calabar speaks volumes of colonial architectural ingenuity, history and reality.
Built in 1884 atop Consular Hill (a name given to the hill by colonial administrators), the building was the seat of the British colonial administration for the Southern Protectorate of Nigeria. The most surprising thing is despite the fact that the building is a prefabricated structure of Scandinavian red pinewood shipped in knockdown parts from Britain to Old Calabar some 130 years ago, it still looks like the beautiful bride it was when the colonial masters unveiled it as “The Government House”.
READ ALSO: Nigeria could benefit from African Trade Insurance Agency boost on critical energy gap
A visit to Calabar (nicknamed Canaan Land by the indigenes) is never complete without peeping into the two-storey Old Residency Building to savour its offerings. The excitement starts with the green environment that is constantly refreshed by the sea breeze from the nearby Calabar River. The green lawns, the very neat surroundings and smiling faces at the entrance welcome you into one of the foundations of Nigeria.
Though the building was declared a National Museum in August 1959, it has received more visitors since August 1986 when it was converted into a museum. Since then, many visitors make effort at reviewing their past, connecting their present with the history that is still fresh and well-preserved at the museum.
Most African-Americans, especially those whose ancestors were shipped from Calabar, and some Nigerian Diasporas visit to trail their roots at the museum. On a visit during the recently concluded Calabar Carnival, some members of the Steel Band from Brazil took out time to visit and recapture history at the museum. At the end, some were convinced that their ancestors probably came from that part of the country and that they were in their land of origin.
“How fate brings us closer to our home. My friends in Brazil should come and see their source,” one of them said.
To spice your visit with the needed variety, many tour guides are handy to take you through the past and bring you back to the present, all in one piece in the museum. From ‘The early European contacts’, ‘The making of the Nigerian protectorates’ to ‘The palm oil production and exports’, among others, there are more than enough relics to connect you to the realities of the past that are now history.
Some of the antiques date back to the 15th century when tribes still inhabited the land and wars were rampant, while lots more narrate the darker days of Calabar’s political history up to the 19th and early 20th century, when the warlords called the shots in town. The pictures of the traditional chiefs and their efforts at resisting the early Europeans vividly recast the past, while their connivance with Europeans in slave trade saddens one on reading the explanatory notes at the bottom of the pictures and illustrations.
One very touchy sight is a life-size sculpture of slaves as they were packed in the belly of the “Super Cargoes” that ferried the victims to various points of no return. The notes explain that half died in the ship and were thrown into the ocean while those who survived did so by sheer providence.
Truly, Calabar has a long history of colonial rule, and this museum represents the era with preserved precious papers and documents pertaining to the colonial times.
The big library which still holds legal and constitutional documents in their original forms is one surprise for today’s internet-savvy generation. Yet, an upper floor, preserved with original furnishings of the time when it was used by colonial rulers, testifies to the taste and trend of the era.
The antiquity, exhibits and artefacts at the museum can engage the attention of visitors for several hours while refreshment awaits visitors at the various restaurants keen on serving the best culinary offerings in Nigeria.
However, before you wrap up your visit, Essien Udoh, one of the tour guides, advises that you need to visit the craft shops at the base of the building to pick one or two crafts as souvenir. “Your welcome will not be warm enough if on return you do not have something to show for your visit,” he insists.
OBINNA EMELIKE
