The need for the exemplary display of patriotic fervour over and above personal sentiments and familial cronyism has been elevated to the front burners of national discourse in the conversation around the belated repatriation of artefacts looted from their ancestral homesteads in Old Benin Kingdom during the dark period of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism.
The case in question relates to the sustained discord between the Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Ewuare II and the Executive Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, over these artefacts due to be returned and where they will be housed upon their return.
While they are in agreement on the need for these cultural, historical and spiritual objects of extreme significance to the people of the ancient kingdom to be returned to their place of origin, they are at variance as to where they should be preserved upon their arrival at the homestead.
The tendency that this discord could potentially derail the hard work put into this lengthy process of actually getting back these bronze works from the length and breadth of the globe where they are earning wealth and prestige for their current holders is a disturbing reality. The long-winded process to recover the items is extensive, but the artefacts can be traced to the reign of Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, who was enthroned in 1888.
Due to trade disagreements in the 19th century, tensions rose between Benin and its main trading partner, Great Britain. The situation worsened even more as the European powers tried to partition Africa into colonial areas. The crisis came to a head in 1897 when, in spite of the Oba’s requests for them to desist from venturing into Benin, a sizeable delegation headed by Britain’s Acting Consul-General in the area, James Phillips, left for Benin City with intentions to seize the throne.
The British delegation was ambushed on January 12 by an Edo army that, by all accounts, did not have the Oba’s consent. The majority of the group, including Phillips, died in the ambush.
A massive British military force, known as the Punitive Expedition, was quickly put together under the command of Sir Harry Rawson. On February 18, 1897, they landed in Benin City with orders to invade and take it over. Oba Ovonramwen escaped capture, but later surrendered and was exiled to Calabar in the company of two of his wives. The disruption of the regular life of the royal court was intentional, just as the wealth of the palace was considered war booty.
The British garnered all they could loot and auctioned a good number to help pay for the invasion. Others were distributed among the personnel and officers of the expeditionary force. Benin’s royal arts became a great topic of discussion when Rawson and his soldiers returned to London with their loot. They immediately attracted the attention of museums, especially those in Britain and Germany, who made attempts to acquire the items for their collections. Eventually, the bronze works from Benin ended up in galleries and museums throughout Europe and the US.
Over the intervening years, succeeding Obas have not forgotten the pillaging of their palace and the usurping of their heritage. Joining with successive governments in Nigeria, they exerted soft pressure to regain possession of the items of heritage and significance across the globe, but the process has been painfully slow and even more unyielding. In 1938, the British returned portions of Oba Ovonramwen’s coral regalia to his grandson Oba Akenzua II, in a gesture of immense significance to the Edo people.
More recently, in October 2021, two of the looted artefacts were returned to the Benin Kingdom. One was a bronze cockerel artefact, known as “Okpa” to the kingdom, from the Jesus College of the University of Cambridge, England. The artefact, which adorned the College, was brought down in 2016 as a result of student activism, which argued against the university’s continued possession of the colonial relic, but a decision to have it repatriated was made in 2019. It was presented to the National Commission for Museum and Monument, in a ceremony presided over by Edo State representatives and Professor Abba Issa Tijani.
The University of Aberdeen in Scotland returned the second artefact: A sculptural piece depicting the head of an Oba, “Uhunwun Elao” for the Benin people. The bronze sculpture was purchased at an auction by the university in 1957 and Professor George Boyne, the school’s principal and vice chancellor, acknowledged that returning the bronze sculpture was the only moral and reasonable course to follow.
The joy of the Benin people, who have welcomed the fruits of decades-old push for these repatriations, is further boosted by the knowledge that more of such artefacts are in the process of being restored to their Kingdom. In July 2021, Monica Grutters, the German Minister of State for Culture, confirmed that Germany was set to return no fewer than 1,130 Benin bronzes that were in German museums during a meeting with Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, and a Nigerian delegation.
Grutters admitted that Germany’s objective was to address its colonial past and that museums holding these bronzes had agreed to cooperate. However, while there seems to be better cooperation and congruence abroad, there appears to be less in Edo State and the home of the artefacts themselves. The bone of contention is a lack of consensus on where to house these treasures and, unfortunately, the governor and the Oba have diametrically opposed notions of this housing conundrum.
Governor Obaseki is aiming for a professionally run Edo Museum of West African Arts (EMOWAA), where the artefacts will be handled in identical manner as they were handled in museums and galleries and exhibitions abroad. Yet, beyond the artefacts, the former chairman of the board of directors of one of the most reputable investment banking and management firms in Nigeria, Afrinvest, which he founded in 1995, wants to create a cultural centre and a tourist hub with the opportunity of these artefacts.
In his conceptual mindset, he is trying to recreate some of the cultural assets of the old Benin Kingdom alongside the artefacts under the management of intellectuals with the cognate know-how and experience to keep to EMOWAA’s core mandate of supporting the preservation of West African heritage and culture and making it an investment from which the kingdom and the state can benefit. To this end, the governor established a Trust, the EMOWAA Trust, under the chairmanship of Phillip Iheanacho ahead of the return of these artefacts.
None of these have gone down well with the Oba because as far as the Palace is concerned, there is only one rightful place for the sculptures looted from the Palace and that is the Palace itself. While expressing the kingdom’s gratitude to Germany for the 1,130 artefacts, the Oba insisted that they will be housed in a planned transformational museum to be built within the ambit of the Palace, which will be constructed as part of a new cultural district in the area and called the Benin Royal Museum.
As the appropriate custodian of the cultural and traditional accoutrements of the kingdom, the Oba believes these artefacts properly belong in the Palace and the royal museum. Any other options will be against the crown, ancestry and people of the kingdom from where they originated. He also noted that working in consonance with the governor, he had acquired additional plots of land from different families within the Adesogbe area near the Palace for the purpose of building this museum and a 2019 budgetary allocation of N500 million had been earmarked for its construction in collaboration with the Oba’s Palace and the Benin Dialogue Group, a multilateral group of major museums across Europe.
That was why the Oba viewed with questionable suspicion the January 2020 incorporation of the company Legacy Restoration Trust Limited, which was purported to take charge of the funding and establishment of the EMOWAA as being tantamount to foul play.
Oba Ewuare II escalated the situation by requesting that the Federal Government take custody of the returned artefacts on behalf of the Palace until the Benin Royal Museum was prepared for their collection, insisting that under no circumstances should the custody of our ancient artefacts be given to any privately contrived entity like Legacy Restoration Trust.
It is well to note that the governor has himself reiterated that he will not cross issues with the Palace as both are on the same side, but sadly, the opposite appears to be the case as both the Oba and Obaseki till date have not been able to have an honest tête-à-tête, where issues of discord will be laid out bare and ironed out squarely for the sake of the kingdom and the state.
I am told by sources with knowledge of the bickering that the Oba has been rebuffing attempts by Obaseki to meet with him over the proposed new museum.
It is obvious that they both mean well and, as sons of the Benin Kingdom, cannot be assumed to be fighting themselves at a time when efforts to repossess our artefacts are yielding dividends.
The peaceful coexistence of the state and the Palace is all the more necessary when taken alongside the promise from a London museum, the Horniman, to return artefacts in their possession numbering about 72, including a key to the King’s Palace, 12 brass plaques, known as Benin Bronzes and a brass cockerel.
The south-east London-based museum disclosed that it consulted with community members, visitors, schoolchildren, academics, heritage professionals and artists based in Nigeria and the United Kingdom before deciding to do the moral and appropriate act of returning the artefacts.
It is now up to the state and the Palace to do the responsible thing, put their sentiments and affiliations aside and work together for the sake of the continued return of their artistic and cultural heritage from around the world.
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