One to the next, the Nigerian Railway Museum is losing its relics, and it appears to be with state backing or the lack of it. No one is confident which it is. What is certain, nonetheless, is that no national heritage is demolished, plundered or given up without government authorisation or irresponsibility.

In 2008, the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) signed an MOU with Legacy 1995, a local not-for-profit historical and environmental interest group, giving it custody of four of its buildings: Jaekel House, Ilukwe House, the railway staff quarters and the old running shed.

The running shed was the railway’s mechanic village. A large expanse of space housing rail wagons, cars and coaches, including the coach which carried Queen Elizabeth when she visited Nigeria in 1956, which was billed to be the railway museum. But lack of funds for its renovation and restoration forced Legacy to look to Jaekel House instead, which was repurposed into what is now the Nigerian Railway and Legacy Mini Museum.

The building, a 125-year-old one-storey, used to be the home of the railway’s general managers. It was also home to Francis Jaekel, a superintendent of the railway, whose name the building was called.

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Legacy has managed to preserve Jaekel House and a good deal of relics of the railway institution from pre-colonial times to as recent as 2010, with proceeds from excursion fees, photo and video shoots, as well as space rental for picnics, but lack of funding and government commitment to the preservation of historic monuments mean that Ilukwe House, the railway staff quarters and the old running shed are encroached upon, pawned off or left to degenerate to ruins.

In 2022, the railway staff quarter, also known as Quarter 24, was demolished after a letter came in from the NRC, which Legacy dissented to. The organisation sent a series of letters to the Joint Railway Committee, which consists of the NRC and Legacy, but the building was torn to the ground and the area fenced off from the rest of the property. Legacy had planned to maintain the quarters for key museum staff.

Meanwhile, the old shed has been left to the mercy of vandals. The Queen’s coach is an eye sore, much like the other monuments in the shed, Taiye Olaniyi, Legacy’s vice president, said.

“That place houses some of these old wagons, and we used to have a beehive of activities there, but unfortunately, it has been subject to vandalism by people from outside, and a series of efforts that we have made to ensure that it is secured have failed. To a very great extent, it has been a thing of concern to us,” he told FIJ.

“This is one rich property that even the railway should be interested in to see that it doesn’t go into oblivion. But for one reason or another, it has developed into a brawl, and we are more or less losing that place, like we lost Quarter 24, which used to be the guest house for the railway drivers.

“That site was rich in history, but unfortunately, in Nigeria, we discard history, and a nation that does not cherish its history will pass into oblivion.”

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Olaniyi said the organisation sent multiple letters to alert the NRC of the encroachment of the properties and to ascertain the authority behind the destruction of national heritage but met a brick wall.

The only intervention that has taken place is the fencing of parts of the property to be given up to a church. What church it was relinquished to, why it was given away and who authorised it, no answers have been provided. Legacy only knows that it was an order from above.

The Ilukwe House, meanwhile, is a shadow of itself, a dilapidating and defaced structure. Philip Adewale, the facility’s manager, said they intended to turn it into a research centre.

“Anyone who wants to learn anything about the railway or is conducting research on railways can come here,” he said, pointing to the Ilukwe House from Jaekel House during a tour.

Immediately after, he showed the tourists the area that used to be Quarter 24, now demolished and fenced off. The museum’s management and NRC have an ongoing case regarding the demolition and the pawning off of part of the property where the old running shed is domiciled.

Nigeria does not appreciate its history, Henry, a worker at the museum, who was a former librarian and has worked in multiple museums, said. These structures are old Brazilian architecture, he added. Why would anyone destroy that?

Olaniyi called it an encroachment. It was a violation of the MOU that they signed, destroying a property that was given to them to manage without duly informing them. He added that the government should be the one checking their activities to make sure that they abide by the agreement but it was the other way around. Legacy was the one checking the excesses of the government. This isn’t feasible, he said, as all the properties in the railway complex still belong to the federal government.

To find lasting solutions to the threat the museum faced, Olaniyi said, the organisation had written to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments and the Federal Ministry of Transport but responsiveness had been slow.

The way forward, according to him, is that all parties must have trust and respect for each other and be forward-thinking to transform the narrative of a lack of care for national monuments and heritage in the country.