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Destination. . . Mungo Park House

By Chuks Nwanne
02 September 2017   |   4:11 am
Mungo Park House is a national monument that happened to be the first headquarters of the Royal Niger Company and Nigeria’s first political headquarters in 1900.

Mungo Park House is a national monument that happened to be the first headquarters of the Royal Niger Company and Nigeria’s first political headquarters in 1900.

With its elegant pose, the house tells the story of the inter play between Western influences and African culture, including the multiple tales of the numerous conflicts, particularly that of trade and investment in pre-colonial era.

Though located in a short alley behind the Grand Hotel, Asaba, it still looks formidable many years after its construction. It appears at first sight to be a repository of age long secrets of a glorious past, reminiscent of the dramatic foray of the colonial overlords over the continent bringing culture, trade and a conflict into the African continent, with Asaba as one of the veritable meeting points of the foreigners and the continent.

Mungo Park was born in 1771 in Foulshiels, Selkirk, Scotland. He died in 1806, at Bussa Rapids. He was a Scottish surgeon and explorer sent out by the ‘Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa’ to discover the course of the River Niger.

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