[2] The museum was founded in 1952 by Bernard E. B. Fagg, who served as the Director of Antiquities of the colonial administration at the time.

[3] The institution was bilingual in English and French until the establishment of a separate French-language centre in Niamey.

The museum has fallen into disrepair, attributed to a lack of government funding, raising concerns about loss of cultural preservation.

In December 1990, one of the stolen artifacts, a fifteenth-century Benin Bronze, was discovered at an auctioneer in Zürich.

This led to a legal battle between the Jos Museum and the buyer over ownership of the artifact.