The structures that housed the offices of Lord Lugard and other early administrators and colonial officials of Nigeria are still intact in Calabar, the Cross River capital. You can still see the massive offices that served as Nigeria’s first ‘Aso Rock’, where both the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria were administered from before it was amalgamated by the same Lord Lugard in 1914.
Materials used in erecting the structure, were all brought in from Britain, with the experts to build it. The one-storey edifice was built in 1884 in Old Calabar. Now called Old Residency, it was originally known as the Government House, and it accommodated the early British administrators of the Niger coast territories.
The Old Residency is situated between the residence of today’s chief judge of Cross River State, that of the deputy governor, and with presidential lodge in front. The building, in 1950, also served as ministerial guest house. After the Nigerian Civil War, the Old Residency accommodated offices of the then new South Eastern State of Nigeria.
The building was declared a national monument in 1959 and has been renovated over time by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in 1986.
Credit is given to Dr. Ekpo O. Eyo, the first Nigerian who became director of antiquities of the commission and later director general in 1968 till 1986 by which time the place was open to the public. He influenced the retention and upgrade of the Old Residency to present national status. The pioneer surveyor of antiquities at the commission, a Briton, was Mr Kenneth C. Murray from 1943 to 1968.
Curator of the museum, Mrs Anna Effiom said the first man that occupied it was one Consul Hewett, who now has a street named after him in Calabar. She said the Old Residency is now used as a national museum, adding that after Hewett, many other colonial administrators and key government functionaries had offices and lived there with their families.
Today, the museum is a tourists site, attracting thousands of visitors who wants to sight the the items and machineries used in the colonial era.
Also, there is a restaurant and wine bar at the museum where local and English delicacies are prepared; while the wine bar serve the coolest drink in the city.
History lives in Nigeria’s first Aso Rock, the old Residency Calabar.
If you are thinking of tourism, think Cross River State.
~George Odok Jnr
