from providing a space where the best of contemporary West African art will be on display, it will also be a center for research and capacity building for young artists. There will be shops where visitors can buy bronze works, thus providing income for the artists.

EMOWAA is also leading the charge regarding archeological studies and the digitization of artworks for safe and sustainable storage and archiving.

But there is a nagging question, will three museums not be too much for Benin City? We can find an answer in world capitals like London, which has more than ten; Victoria and Albert, Tate Modern, London museum, British Museum, National History Museum, Imperial War Museum, Design museum and more. New York has over twenty from the Museum of Modern Arts, the Guggenheim to the Frick, The Metropolitan Museum of Art to the American Museum of Natural History and others. In Berlin, there are over ten museums from the Hamburger Bahnhof to the German Historical Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Bode Museum, and the DDR museum, amongst others.

The point to be made is that with the coming of the Royal Museum, National Museum, Edo Museum and EMOWAA, Benin City is about to stake its claim as a bonafide culture capital of the world.

Toni Kan is a Lagos based writer

Nigeria has two creative tribes: Bini and others. Argue with your keyboard.

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