Ms Esther Oladimeji, Curator of the Hakeem Shitta Photo and Cultural Archive (HSPACA), has urged Nigeria to urgently preserve its arts and cultural heritage, describing documentation as critical to national memory, identity and global relevance.

Oladimeji, in a chat, highlighted the immense historical value of the Hakeem Shitta Archive, which documents Nigeria’s cultural, political and social life between 1981 and 1995.

She described the late Hakeem Shitta as an artist, photojournalist and cultural archivist whose work predated digital media and social platforms, capturing Nigeria’s artistic renaissance and political transitions before the internet age.

“Between 1981 and 1995, Hakeem Shitta meticulously documented Nigeria’s cultural evolution. His archive is a living record of who we were before the age of social media,” Oladimeji said.

According to her, the archive covers 180 theatre productions, 81 concerts, 67 exhibitions and 326 human-interest situations, including festivals, regattas, everyday street life and visual documentation of the 1993 presidential election period.

“HSPACA contains over 6,000 images of Nigerian poets, actors, dramatists, visual artists, dancers, filmmakers, essayists, and journalists. The archive serves as a crucial historical record of Nigeria’s creative memory, meticulously documenting the evolution of various artists and intellectuals over several decades. It is important to understand the specific, high-value offerings it has today in 2025. Based on the official HSPACA records, the archive is not just a collection of “old photos” but a foundational piece of Nigeria’s creative memory,” Oladimeji said.

She called on government institutions, scholars and researchers within and outside the country to network and collaborate with the archive to preserve history in Nigeria’s arts and culture.

According to her, this is a vast library documenting every stage of evolution for Nigeria’s most accomplished poets, actors, musicians, and intellectuals—from their “breakthrough” moments to their educational background.

On theatre and performance, Oladimeji said Shitta documented defining moments at the National Theatre and other major stages across Nigeria, preserving productions that would otherwise have disappeared.

She listed productions such as Kongi’s Harvest, The Lion and the Jewel and The Trials of Brother Jero by Wole Soyinka, as well as Kurunmi and The Gods Are Not to Blame by Ola Rotimi.

Describing HSPACA as an irreplaceable national treasure, she urged federal and state ministries of arts and culture to collaborate in preserving what she said does not exist anywhere else in the world.