Nigerian cultural heritage: preservation, challenges and prospects

Abstract

Nigerian is a country endowed with a lot of cultural heritages sourced from its multicultural communities. Contemporary status of most Nigerian cultural heritages (both material and non-material) is best described as endangered. This paper derives from a functionalist perspective which descriptively presents a historical, anthropological, and archaeological account of the Nigerian cultural heritage. Efforts at preserving these heritages are obstructed with daunting challenges, particularly human activities such as trafficking and exportation of Nigerian arts, thefts and looting of museums, vandalism, iconoclasm, Christianity, civilization, commerce, change, and developmental projects among others. Hence, the clarion call for its preservation due to avalanche of prospects derived from an adequately preserved cultural heritage