Enhancing GDP through cultural values

Esie is an Igbomina town in Irepodun local government area of Kwara state, North Central Nigeria. It lies about 48 kilometers South-east of Ilorin, the state capital, and about 128 kilometers North-east of Ife, the cradle of Yoruba civilisation.

It is home to the popular 800 soap stones, popularly known as “Esie Soap Stone”. The images are surrounded by intriguing and puzzling mysteries that have spanned hundreds of years since their discovery over 240 years ago in a thick forest near the community.

No one has been able to unravel its mysterious presence, not even the indigenes of the community till today.The soap stones were brought to limelight in 1993 by H.G Ranshaw a C.M.S inspector in Oyo state.

A look at the stone images shows that they have facial marks of three horizontal lines between the eyes and ears. Some have vertical lines on the chin while majority wear necklaces and bracelets. But all the objects are in figures; there are figures of women holding machetes.

This images were in a semi-secular form when they were discovered with the supposed king in the middle as if presiding over a meeting. A plant called paregun/Oralenta was planted on the side to demarcate the site in the 1770’s by the people of Esie. There is a shrine at the site which has three layers – seated in the shrine is the king, queen and an errand slave boy and other paraphernalia of office shown at different positions in the shrine.

There are several versions of this mythical creation; one of the oral traditions has it that the images were discovered by a famous hunter Baragbon who led the Esie people in 1775. The hunter discovered these images by accident in a semi-secular form under palm tree. He went back to inform the Elesie about what he had found in the bush. The monarch then sent for the Ifa Priest. After consulting the oracle, he said the images were formally human beings before they were turned to stonesl. And out of fear, the people of Esie started worshiping the images so that what happened to the images will not happen to them.

The Esie stone images are up to 1,000 pieces. One wonders why these number of soap stones would be carved at the same location and how many number of carvers were involved. There is no where in the world where it is recorded that every member of a society is involved in the same trade or craft.

 All of these are the mind bugging questions surrounding the Esie soap stones. Some of their objects of mystery are housed at the National Museum Esie, the first national museum to be opened to the public in Nigeria in 1945.

Among the museum collections is a seated soap stone figure holding a sword in his right hand which rest on top of the left hand. It wears an elaborate crown and beard. The shape of the eye resemble some Yoruba wooden sculpture. It has a height of 75.5cm. Another notable relic is a seated stone figure of a man with a bracelet on his right arm placed on the abdomen. It  wears a cap, a dome shaped head dress with a zigzag pattern near the hairline which appears to be beaded with a height of 60cm.

The Esie soap stone has a very important cultural value that is capable of generating huge revenue to the museum and, by extension, the federal government. If the site is upgraded, it would attract more local and foreign tourists and visitors majority of who might engage in commercial activities thereby boosting the non-oil sector’s contribution to Nigeria’s GDP.

Samuel Bakari,

Documentation Officer,

National Commission for 

Museum and Monument headquarters, Abuja