Twenty-three Benin Bronzes that were among the hundreds of items that the British took during their invasion of the Benin Kingdom in 1897 have been returned to Nigeria by the United States.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, praised the US for returning the stolen cultural property during the repatriation ceremony on Tuesday in Washington, DC.
Segun Adeyemi, Special Assistant to the President (Media) Office of the Minister of Information and Culture, made a statement containing this.
”Please permit me, on behalf of the government and people of Nigeria, to most sincerely thank the United States and her major cultural heritage institutions for the return of these highly-cherished Benin Bronzes to Nigeria – which is the reason we are here today,” he said.
”These artifacts are intrinsic to the culture that produced them. A people ought not be denied the works of their forebears. It is in the light of this that we are delighted with today’s repatriation of the Benin Bronzes,” the minister was quoted to have said.
He thanked the National Gallery of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art Boards of Trustees for participating in discussions with Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments that resulted in the artifacts being returned to their country of origin.
The treasures would be repatriated “in a manner that will win more friends and promote greater goodwill for Nigeria and the ethnic groups that produced the artifacts,” according to the minister, who also revealed that Nigeria will shortly open a worldwide touring exhibition with the relics.
Mohammed claimed that the release of the Benin Bronzes discovered in the US was evidence of the accomplishments of the November-launched Campaign for the Return and Restitution of Nigeria’s Looted/Smuggled Artifacts from Around the World.
”We have also received or are in the process of receiving repatriated artifacts from The Netherlands, the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, Mexico, the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Germany, among others,” he said.
Mohammed recalled that the US and Nigeria signed a bilateral cultural property agreement to stop the smuggling of particular types of Nigerian antiques into the US.
”This agreement solidifies our shared commitment to combat looting and trafficking of precious cultural property, while also establishing a process for the return of trafficked cultural objects, thus reducing the incentive to loot sites in Nigeria,” he said.
In his remarks, Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian, said the Institution was “humbled and honored to play a small role in transferring ownership of the art works to Nigeria”.
He continued by saying that the Smithsonian Institution’s actions ought to be driven by ethical considerations.
The recovered artifacts are divided into 21 from the Smithsonian and one each from the National Gallery of Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design, according to the statement.
The statement listed those in attendance at the ceremony as Prince Aghatise Erediauwa, a representative of the Oba of Benin, and Prof. Abba Tijani, Director-General of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
Others were Kaywin Feldman, Director of the US National Gallery of Art, and Ngaire Blankenberg, Director of the US National Museum for African Art (NMAfA).
