The National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), Lagos office on Thursday said it had recorded 41,826 visitors in 2017.
NCMM’s Head of Education Department, Mr Emmanuel Omotosho told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the commission suffered low patronage towards the end of the year due to fuel scarcity.
He said that the scarcity accounted for a shortfall in patronage when compared with 46,359 visitors recorded in 2016.
He gave the record as: January – 1,015, February – 5,523, March – 10,984, April – 2,093, May – 2,206, June – 4,347, July – 2,625, August – 1,588, September – 1,269, October – 3,352, November – 4,107 and December – 2,715.
Omotosho said that the museum hosted 42,724 in 2015, 46,359 in 2016 and 41,826 in 2017 with a difference of 4,533 when compared to 2016.
He noted that before now, patronage at the museum had been on the increase, saying this was affected by the induced fuel scarcity.
“It is unfortunate that patronage went down last year due to fuel scarcity, we were doing well since the beginning of the year, but the fuel scarcity experienced in December gave us this result.
“We hope this problem is finally resolved so that people will not be deprived of coming into the museum to gain knowledge,” he said.
