Mungo Park House

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. The Mungo Park House with its elegant pose 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.

Mungo Park House is just a stone throw from the architectural modern masterpiece of Grand Hotel, Asaba. Although located in a short alley behind the hotel, 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. Having achieved a degree of fame from his first trip, carried out alone and on foot, he returned to Africa with a party of 40 Europeans, all of whom lost their lives in the adventure.