U.S. returns Benin bronzes as Nigeria prepares to exhibit artworks

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has commended the United States for the repatriation to Nigeria of 23 Benin Bronzes, part of the thousands of artefacts that were looted by the British during their invasion of Benin Kingdom in 1897.

Nigeria has also received or are in the process of receiving repatriated artefacts from The Netherlands, the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, Mexico, the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Germany, among others.”

The Minister, while thanking the United States and its cultural institutions for the return at the repatriation ceremony in Washington, DC, yesterday, said: “These artefacts 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.”

He also thanked the Boards of Trustees of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design for engaging in the discussions with Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments that led to the repatriation of the artefacts.

The Minister disclosed that Nigeria would soon launch an international traveling exhibition with the artifacts being repatriated “in a manner that will win more friends and promote greater goodwill for Nigeria and the ethnic groups that produced the artefacts.”

He said the release of the Benin Bronzes found in the US was a testament to the success of the ‘Campaign For The Return and Restitution of Nigeria’s Looted/Smuggled Artefacts from around the world’, which was launched in November 2019.

He recalled that Nigeria and the US have signed a bilateral cultural property agreement to prevent illicit import into the United States of some categories of Nigerian artifacts.

‘’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,’’ the Minister 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”, adding that ethical consideration should be at the heart of what Smithsonian as an institution does.

The returned artifacts comprise 21 from the Smithsonian and one each from the National Gallery of Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design.

Also at the ceremony were the Director-General of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monument, Prof. Abba Tijani; Prince Aghatise Erediauwa, Representative of the Oba of Benin; Ngaire Blankenberg, Director of the US National Museum for African Art (NMAfA) and Kaywin Feldman, Director, US National Gallery of Art (NGA).