The chairman of the Pan African Heritage Museum (PAHM), Professor Kojo Yankah, has stated that the multi-purpose African heritage museum will be commissioned within two years.
The project is estimated to cost around US$50 million for its completion. The museum, the first of its kind in the world, is said to house imagery of African heroes and heroines as well as cultural artefacts across the region.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held last year [2023] for construction to begin.
According to the pan-Africanist and former minister of state, the Pan-African Heritage Museum will be a “home of restitution for people of African descent.”
Addressing donors and patrons of the project at a fundraising dinner night at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra, yesterday [March 6], Prof. Yankah bemoaned the lack of museums on the African continent.
“There are 55,000 museums around the world which have been largely sight of memory, with historical, cultural and artistic exhibitions mainly about specific subjects, communities and countries for public viewing. Out of this number, 35,000 of the museums are in the United States of America alone, Europe has 15,000 and the whole of Africa can count only 900,” he stated.
On the African continent, he noted that while South Africa has about 300 museums, Nigeria has about 52, Egypt also has 72, and Ghana has barely 28.
Against this background, he emphasized that Africa needs more museums to “keep our stories,” indicating that “if we want to preserve and save our history, we must find a place to keep them and that place can only be in a museum.”
Why PAHM is unique
Prof. Yankah further stressed the unique nature of the Pan African Heritage Museum, which is not just in Ghana or Africa but in the world.
“We are pan-Africans aspiring to bring under one roof the missing pages and new findings of our history, arts, culture, indigenous knowledge, and the many unpublished achievements of our people,” said the founder and president of the African University College of Communication (AUCC).
He added that “there are so many pieces that have been denied us because we did not save them.”
The PAHM, according to the Chairman, is on the path of opening the doors that were closed when the Kings and Queens of the continent were “taken from their homes, deprived of their needs, their religion and communities.”
He continued by indicating that Africans were “robbed of their heritage and miseducated about the Africa they left behind.”
The museum will equally ensure that miseducation that occurred centuries ago is corrected for current and future generations to learn the true African stories.
“Equally, we on the continent have not been educated enough about our kings and queens who were taken out of our homes, our communities and our country,” he said, adding that, “there is so much ignorance.”
The fundraising Dinner
The dinner was held under the patronage of the eminent Council of Elders of the Museum. It attracted individuals from corporate Africa, patrons of the arts, and embassies of the pan-African world.
The event was under the theme “The Africa Heritage Night: Making a Contribution towards a Better Humanity.”
It was organized to raise more funds for the construction of the museum on Heritage Hills, Pomadze, near Winneba Roundabout, in the Central region.
The Pan-African Heritage Museum, conceived as the first of its kind in the world, seeks to exhibit the history, arts, culture, achievements, and ideals of the pan-African world from the ancient to the present.