Beyond leveraging the global push for repatriation and calling for the return of stolen cultural artefacts, the Nigerian government needs to change its attitude towards cultural art to guarantee the Benin Bronzes a meaningful future at home.
Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, Godfathers: An Introduction. Buy the issue here.
In April 2018, the Beninese minister of culture and sports, Oswald Homecky, considered the restitution of African cultural artefacts by the French government unlikely, akin to ‘the reunification of North and South Korea’. This was after attempts by the Beninese government to recover artefacts held in French museums stalled in a legal impasse. The artefacts, royal statues, were looted in the pillage of Abomey palace by French forces in 1892. But, in 2016, when the Beninese government requested these artefacts, the French government refused to release them, citing local laws. For several years, the Nigerian government has also demanded the repatriation of several Benin Bronzes and other cultural artefacts held in museums worldwide to no avail...
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