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Under normal circumstances, men are at the mercy of God but we have at least one case on our hands, where gods are at the mercy of men. This is the bottom line of today’s Travels. Welcome to Esie Town, the home of distraught deities. The Kwara State settlement of Esie, which stands adjacent to Oro in Irepodun Local Government Area (LGA), holds an unassailable record. Located some 54 km from the Kwara State capital, Ilorin, Esie boasts a station of the National Commission of Museums and Monuments (NCMM).

Like most museums, Esie Museum is open to the public from 8am to 5.30pm daily, and admission to that repository is N100 for each foreigner, against a fee of N40 or N20 per Nigerian adult or child respectively. However, Esie’s museum is like no other. National Museum, Esie has a collection of some 1, 500 precious stones, which stands it out as home to the largest haul of such artefacts in Africa. But, that is not this museum’s only claim to fame.

Built in 1945, barely two years after the Nigeria Antiquity Service, progenitor of today’s NCMM came into being, National Museum Esie is also the first such repository in our country. Unfortunately, the plight of Esie’s Museum is no better than the predicament faced by other houses of heritage across Nigeria. In deed, it is even believed that the situation at Esie is worse than what obtains at numerous other outposts of the NCMM.

Esie’s is a community-based museum established by the colonial government to preserve unique soapstone sculptures, which were discovered in 1775 and brought to increasing popularity since 1933. Sadly, successive Nigerian governments have for too long treated this repository with inadequate concern; much to the delight of antiquity traffickers, who find an easy prey in Esie sculptures as well as other priceless ancient artefacts across the land.

Who could forget, how museum officials returned in the morning to resume work only to find their security men in deep slumber? It took violent shakes to bring the men out of their apparent coma. A check on the store revealed several pieces of antiquity were missing. The apparently famished museum staff had jumped at an offer of food and drinks from thieves pretending to be viewers. No sooner had the security personnel ingested the Greek gift, than they fell into a deep sleep, while the looters went on to help themselves. That’s how Esie entered the statistics of many of Nigeria’s looted museums. In spite of that experience, the priceless pieces of antiquities at Esie Museum remain without adequate protection, to date.

Nigeria boasts several enviable sculpture traditions that date back many centuries. Apart from Esie, these ancient three-dimensional pieces, which come in metal, stone, terra cotta and wood, include those from Alok (Ikom Monoliths), Benin, Ife, Igbo-Ukwu, Nok, Oron (Ekpu), Owo and Tada.

Mission to Esie
It was well past 4pm by the time I finished my work at National Museum, Esie. Although this repository is Nigeria’s first museum, it’s among the least visited nowadays. However, the dismal number of visitors was the least of my worries on my way out of these premises. It has to be only in a place run by inept leaders that over 1, 000 pieces of antiquity would be treated with so much levity. At Esie, Nigeria’s oldest museum, over 1, 000 invaluable ancient artefacts, inextricable aspects of our national heritage, are waiting to be picked. For decades, the environment in which these antique pieces are stored have been far from satisfactory.

Welcome to Esie, where the official vehicle of an outpost of the NCMM is an ancient Volkswagen Beetle that last rolled off its parking space more than 20 years ago.

Also, since there is no pipe-borne water at Esie Museum, the 52-man workforce has no alternative but to drink well water. During our visit, Travels spoke with Mr. Emeka Steven Ibechiozor, Curator of National Museum Esie. This is how the man confirmed the scarcity of safe drinking water there: “There’s nothing like tap water, here. But, there’s a well and that’s where the staff get water for drinking.” Furthermore, Esie Museum has no official telephone line, which means that workers are at the mercy of GSM network operators all the time.

For someone, who worked at the rather vibrant Jos station of the National Museum for 15 years, prior to his posting to Esie as curator in October 2003, Ibechiozor ought to be feeling frustrated, but the man seemed to be coping quite well. He had since adapted to his current base, and when we got to Esie Museum on Friday February 8, the man had just returned from an official trip to a neighbouring town, Omu Aran. How did he travel? In his personal car: “That’s the only way to make sure the work moves here,” he remarked.

To worsen matters, National Museum Esie, had also lost 10 of its workers, mostly gardeners and cleaners, to the 2007 lay-offs in the federal civil service, which seemed to hit the museum worse than other agencies. Although Mr. Ibechiozor and others manage to keep the immediate surroundings of their station very tidy, a large portion of the premises, which covers a sprawling landmass, showed that the grass needed pruning.

Sadly, however, the lack of an automobile to facilitate workers’ mobility, the overgrown weed on some areas of the complex and absence of potable water at Esie Museum were the lesser of one’s worries after our latest visit to that museum. Although Esie holds over 1, 000 invaluable stones, the attention given this outpost is far from commensurate with its collection and history as the nation’s premiere house of heritage.

A lot Ibechiozor had planned to do, to breathe new life into this repository, but everything fell through because, like other stations of the NCMM, Esie Museum has been groaning under want of funding for at least two years. But what did you expect: what is man worth, where even deities are treated with disdain?

Left in a lurch
For more than 200 years, the people of Esie worshipped countless gods. Among the local deities were special objects carved from steatite aka soap-rock. These objects are now popularly called Esie Stone sculptures. The Esie sculptures are called Ere Esie in Yoruba, while a deity translates as Orisa.
It’s not known who carved Ere Esie but there are believed to be more than 1, 000 such antique statuettes. Thus, aside various other gods of the Esie, the community had more than 1, 000 deities to take their troubles to. However, the town’s ruling monarch, the Elesie of Esie, Oba Y. A. Babalola Egunjobi II, had decreed that every obeisance to these stones must stop. The incumbent king, Alhaji Egunjobi II, who was crowned Oba of Esie on October 30, 1987, is the 15th Elesie, and as the ruling monarch’s title of Alhaji suggests, the man is a Muslim.

Since the king’s word is law, the people of Esie therefore stopped worshipping the stone gods, as directed by their traditional ruler. Unfortunately, however, the vicissitudes of these 1001 deities did not end there: Shunned by local faithful, the stones widely hailed as gems within archaeological circles, have also been virtually abandoned by successive Nigerian authorities charged with ensuring proper management of the nation’s cultural property.

Evocative of Twilight of the gods, the tale of Esie Museum is therefore one of ancestor figures abandoned, left in a lurch and ignored. With adherents barred from worshipping these deities, the hitherto revered figures that once enjoyed lavish offerings and sacrifices have literally been turned to hungry ghosts. The lore of Esie Museum is akin to one of shepherds without flocks: The table has turned against these gods, which now seemingly pray to man for some respite but all to no avail. Truly, these are bad times, even for gods.

Precious stones of Esie
Although an inspector of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) for Oro Area, Mr. H. G. Ramshaw, would further project these monoliths’ existence to the outside world, the locals were already acquainted with the artefacts centuries before 1933. One fable has it that Esie natives had been living side by side with the stone gods for a very long time before the latter were discovered. Such lore hints at the possibility that the stones were once human beings, who for reasons, which remain unclear, got transfigured into monoliths.

According to local lore, when the collection was found, the objects were arranged in such a way that one would think the community was at a meeting. The king figure stood in the middle, as if presiding over a village gathering.

However, that original set piece no longer holds sway: Hundreds of the stones have been classified into four groups and packed on different pedestals at the indoor bays inside a rectangular structure with a sort of courtyard standing between the Shrine and the block, where the curator’s office is located.
Oral tradition further reveals that when the then ruling Elesie set eyes on the soap-stone collection, after their discovery in 1775, the man took to his heels in fright. This is the reason subsequent monarchs of this town were barred from seeing these gods. But how the table has since turned: Following theft of these stones, and poor management of antiquities by successive Nigerian governments, one could say that the stones must be filled with fear, each time they behold the sight of man. Unfortunately, they cannot flee to safety.

Esie’s gems are generally statuettes ranging in height from 14 cm to 1.2m. The objects’ weight also varies from 0.5 kg to slightly more than 1kg. Put simply, Ere Esie are depictions of male and female figures clad in various ways and engaged in sundry activities. Some appeared to have been playing musical instruments, and others performing rituals and so on, when they were transformed and permanently frozen in time. Some of the images carry facial marks, some bear interesting coiffure and from their mode of dressing and so on, it would appear the population was heterogeneous or cosmopolitan. In any case, the museum authorities have divided these sculptures into different groups, namely; Social, Religious, Political and Economic, based on their attire, chore and so on.

Unfortunately, these priceless pieces of antiquity are housed in a hall barely protected, even as fewer security men are now on hand to keep watch over them, following the mass retrenchment at the NCMM, which saw that institution’s staff strength plummet by a third, from over 3, 000 to roughly 2, 000.

Mr. Ibechiozor said there has been no theft or break-in at Esie since October 2003, when he assumed duty there. But, that is no reason modern security devices should not be installed at this museum. After all, looters had struck at Esie at least once in the past. If it happened before, it could happen again. That replicas have been thrown in among the items on display is a pointer to the realization that thieves could actually come calling again.

Esie shrine
Once, countless worshippers frequently trooped to Esie shrine to offer sacrifices to their gods or for supplication. That shrine stands within Esie Museum complex, near the spot, where the collection of soap-rock carvings was discovered in 1775. Although the precious stones were found inside a grove, the Peregun trees that hid the stones from the Esie public for a long, long time had withered away over the centuries. This informed the decision to plant a commemorative tree as landmark at the original location, where the ancient stones were found. Moreover, a quasi-altar had been built to house the king of all the Esie stones. That immotile monarch (Oba Ere) sits squarely and permanently on his throne surrounded by various paraphernalia associated with an African royal personage.

Further insights into Esie and its abandoned gods
In the book, Ere Esie: The Esie stone images, the author, Mr. Joseph Agboola Ooye, states that a contestant for the throne of Alaafin of Oyo had lost that tussle to Chief Amuniwaye, who was eventually crowned. And as was common those days, the defeated aspirant, Adesole, had migrated from Oyo to found a new settlement, where he reigned. That new home was Esie, and Adesole, the founding king with the title of Elesie, was a forebear of Mr. Joseph Agboola Ooye, the author. In other words, aborigines of Esie are descendants of the ancient Oyo Kingdom.

According to Chief Ooye, Reverend Father A. Simon, a Catholic priest who established that Christian Mission in Oro Town, had probably heard about the images, but he did not see them before another European, Mr. H. G. Ramshaw. Interestingly, Ramshaw actually heard of the objects from Fr. Simon. Thus, Mr. Ramshaw became the “second European to see the images.” Unlike the first European, Leo Frobenius, who took “three heads of the images; to add to the Helena Rubenstein collections, now in the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, Ramshaw was the first European to take positive steps to bring the existence of the images to the knowledge of other people,” according to Ooye.

Aside, Ramshaw, other Europeans that quickly propagated the existence of the Esie sculptures to the outside world were S. Milburn (1936), Daniel (1937), J. D. Clarke (1938) and Kenneth Murray, founding head of the NCMM, whose Esie sculpture papers were published in 1951.

Getting there
Esie is accessible by road via Ilorin, Omu Aran, Offa and other surrounding towns. Within an hour after departure from Ilorin, the wayfarer should be in Oro. On the way, the traveller would probably notice signboards identifying various settlements, including Ganmo, Idofian, Ajase-Ipo and Omupo. Coming from the state capital, the tourist can join a collective taxi or bus at the now little used local Railway Terminal near Post Office Roundabout, where Emir/Sulu Gambari Road cuts across Murtala Mohammed Way.

During our latest trip, the fare was N200 from Ilorin to Oro Town. From any of the bus stops along Omu Aran Road in Oro, the traveller would get a commercial bike (okada) to ferry one to Esie at a fare of around N70. Usually, the bike would traverse a few streets in Oro before getting to a bridge, where a concrete signboard bearing the inscription, Welcome to Esie, greets the visitor. Less than 300m from here, the okada rider would turn into Isale-Esie Road, which stands facing a cemetery. Heading down the cascading avenue, the tourist is not likely to miss such roadside blurs as Iya Agnes Eleja and Saint Michaels Nursery and Primary School written either on a building’s wall or on a notice board. All the way from the outskirts of Oro Town into Esie, the landscape is undulating, the streets are largely serpentine and the topography is littered with a forest of massive houses; most of them in the three/four-floor category. Despite this plenitude of abodes, both Oro and Esie appear sparsely populated. In fact, the majority of the structures seemed abandoned or without inhabitants.

When we voiced this observation to our driver/guide, Mr. Abdulrazaq Adewale, his explanation was that Esie, Oro and many areas of Igbomina land come alive during the Yuletide or other festive seasons. According to Adewale, most natives of these climes live in Lagos and only visit home briefly during public holidays. At such times, the town assumes unique effervescence, which fizzles out as soon as the observance was over.

Going by Ere Esie: The Esie stone images, Esie got her first primary school in 1929 and that institution received government’s approval before 1933. To date, however, the highest educational institution in Esie is Government Technical School, which stands opposite the local National Museum. As Nigeria’s oldest museum, it’s natural to expect much at Esie’s repository, but don’t count on it. As the sixth or seventh largest oil exporting country, you’d expect a better standard of living for most Nigerians but that is not the case. Esie Museum and its endangered collection are therefore simply more paradigms of our nation. Endowed almost beyond imagination but little or nothing to show for it due to successive hopeless leadership: As a nation, so its museum institution.