The National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, Launches Museum Trails in its Permanent Exhibition Space

Written by Beatrice Adeola Bamigbade, Chief Conservator, Unity Museum, National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) (Nigeria, ITP 2022)

My experience at the British Museum 2022 Annual International Training Programme would have been incomplete without the opportunity for fellows to have lunch with the then Director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, in the Sloane Room.

During our conversation, Hartwig Fischer asked me, “What will you give back to your museum after your time on the ITP?” I replied, “I hope to introduce and create museum trails at the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan when I return to my country.” Among other ideas I shared, the concept of creating trails stood out as a significant focus for me. I was passionate about helping our audience engage more deeply with our collections through the use of trails.

This presented a great challenge, as I needed to gain the support of the Museum’s authorities for this new concept. In 2025, I created fifteen trails with high hopes that the management would eventually align with this vision. I shared some of the trails with them, but it didn’t seem to spark any interest.

On March 25, 2026, the management of my museum, in collaboration with the IFRA committee, gave me the opportunity to present a talk on the uses and importance of trails for museum engagement during the “Transforming Museum Engagement: Audiovisual Accessibility and Integration Workshop” alongside two other discussants who spoke on “the roles of audiovisual accessibility and integration in the gallery space”.  The workshop was attended by educational service staff, curators, and other museum professionals, providing a platform to “train the trainers.” We had a practical sessions on how to build museum trails and test-ran some of the trails I had created.

Twelve museum trails and three scavenging hunt trails were presented at this workshop, and the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan, has since begun implementing these trails. To make the use of these “Treasure Trails” easier and more accessible, I introduced directional guides in the galleries and added QR codes behind each museum trail for visitor’s feedbacks.

Planning permanent exhibitions is expensive and time-consuming. The use of museum trails helps visitors overcome the challenges of monotonous exhibitions that may have become boring by creating new stories and themes outside the permanent exhibition theme. These museum trails link specific collections from the permanent exhibition to tell these stories, increasing audience interaction, learning, and engagement with the collections in a refreshing way. They also provide insights beyond the text labels and exhibited themes. It allows visitors to navigate the museum within a budgeted timeframe.

This success would not have been possible without the support of my Deputy Director and Coordinator of the Southwest Museums in Nigeria, Oriyomi Pamela Otuka, as well as the coordinators from the French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA-Nigeria).

I wholeheartedly agree with Clare Smith’s words, a museum professional at the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums: creating audience engagement requires patience and small steps. She said, “Don’t wait until you see the whole picture (the results); start with those baby steps and celebrate your milestones.” Thank you, Clare; those words have stayed with me.