The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their understanding of their history.
As a continent, Africa lost several artefacts during the colonial era to colonialists. Several years later, many African countries still struggle with the slow procedural retrieval of these artefacts from the countries where they are currently illegally domiciled worldwide.
The looted treasures range from the Maqdala treasures and manuscripts to the Nefertiti Bust and Rosetta Stone. However, what has remained bothersome is the unwillingness and reluctance of the former colonialists to return these stolen artefacts.
In a recent media briefing organised by the Nigerian government during the inauguration of a Campaign for the Return and Restitution of Nigeria’s Looted and Smuggled Artifacts worldwide, the Minister of Information stated Nigeria is committed to recovering all her stolen artefacts.
In his words, he stated that: “We are coming for them, using all legal and diplomatic instruments available. We do not believe this will be easy, but no one should doubt our determination to succeed in this campaign. We cannot imagine by what logic an Ife Bronze, Benin Bronze, or Nok Terracotta can belong to any other part of the globe except to the people of Nigeria, whose ancestors made them. We have never laid claim to the Mona Lisa or a Rembrandt.
Those who looted our heritage resources, especially during the 19th-century wars, or those/who smuggled them out of the country for financial reasons, have simply encouraged the impoverishment of our heritage and stealing of our past.”
This is coming off the backdrop of a report commissioned last year by France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, where he called for a change in French law and the return of thousands of African objects taken during the colonial era and currently showcased in France’s museums.
However, not many countries are interested in following Macron’s blueprint. In a swift reaction to this act, a former curator of the British Museum’s African galleries, Chris Spring, stated that “France had every right and reason to make that report and the very contentious collections should be looked at, but the British Museum is a museum of the world for the world. If Africa is not represented, that is a disaster.
We need to remember London is a global African city, arguably the most significant African town in the world; if you think of all the different people, It’s essential that people of African heritage living in the UK and Europe can see cultural artefacts of their heritage.”
While Chris’ argument seems fanciful, the Nigerian government has a different mindset. Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information, clearly stated that “the tourism and culture sector is one of the critical sectors identified for diversifying the nation’s economy, and these priceless heritage resources have a role to play.
How can we benefit from what is ours when most of them adorn the museums and private collections of others who describe them as their properties?” An allegation raised here is the former colonialists’ description of these artefacts as their properties.
The looted treasures range from the Maqdala treasures and manuscripts to the Nefertiti Bust and Rosetta Stone. However, what has remained bothersome is the unwillingness and reluctance of the former colonialists to return these stolen artefacts.
In a recent media briefing organised by the Nigerian government during the inauguration of a Campaign for the Return and Restitution of Nigeria’s Looted and Smuggled Artifacts worldwide, the Minister of Information stated Nigeria is committed to recovering all her stolen artefacts.
In his words, he stated that: “We are coming for them, using all legal and diplomatic instruments available. We do not believe this will be easy, but no one should doubt our determination to succeed in this campaign. We cannot imagine by what logic an Ife Bronze, Benin Bronze, or Nok Terracotta can belong to any other part of the globe except to the people of Nigeria, whose ancestors made them. We have never laid claim to the Mona Lisa or a Rembrandt.
Those who looted our heritage resources, especially during the 19th-century wars, or those/who smuggled them out of the country for financial reasons, have simply encouraged the impoverishment of our heritage and stealing of our past.”
This comes from a report commissioned last year by France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, who called for a change in French law and the return of thousands of African objects taken during the colonial era and currently showcased in France’s museums.
However, not many countries are interested in following Macron’s blueprint. In a swift reaction to this act, a former curator of the British Museum’s African galleries, Chris Spring, stated that “France had every right and reason to make that report and the very contentious collections should be looked at, but the British Museum is a museum of the world for the world. If Africa is not represented, that is a disaster.
We need to remember London is a global African city, arguably the most significant African town in the world; if you think of all the different people, It’s essential that people of African heritage living in the UK and Europe can see cultural artefacts of their heritage.”
While Chris’ argument seems fanciful, the Nigerian government has a different mindset. Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information, clearly stated that “the tourism and culture sector is one of the critical sectors identified for diversifying the nation’s economy, and these priceless heritage resources have a role to play.
How can we benefit from what is ours when most of them adorn the museums and private collections of others who describe them as their properties?” An allegation raised here is the former colonialists’ description of these artefacts as their properties.
No nation would be happy to be stripped of its heritage and ridiculed. Although he clearly stated that Nigeria is not against circulating its heritage resources worldwide, it should be done legally. He mentioned that “we are aware that art lovers worldwide genuinely love them, and we also know that all the major museums worldwide desire to have them on loan.
For these reasons, we are okay with conducting joint exhibitions and loaning the objects out. But doing these is predicated on the condition that the nations and museums holding them understand and agree that ownership of these cultural objects resides in the Nigerian State now and forever. Under no legal interpretation or rule shall we ever be divested of the right of these objects, for they are intrinsically ours, and they represent essential pages in our history?”
Some of Africa’s stolen artefacts include:
Maqdala Treasures (Ethiopia)
The British captured Magdala, Emperor Tewodros II’s mountain capital in Northwest Ethiopia, in 1868 and destroyed the place. Ethiopian churches were also looted of valuable cultural objects and treasures, including crowns, gold and silver crosses, and numerous manuscripts documenting Ethiopia’s history from Solomon and Sheba to the early 19th century.
Also, various illustrated Ge’ez manuscripts were stolen. Over ten elephants were required to carry the loot across the Bashilo River to the nearby Dalanta Plain. Many Magdala treasures were auctioned off, while others are displayed at the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Queen’s Library at Windsor Castle. However, in 2005, Italy returned an ancient granite obelisk almost seven decades after Italian troops looted it.
Bangwa Queen (Cameroon)
Stolen from her royal shrine in Cameroon, the Bangwa Queen was believed to have been given or looted by a German colonial agent named Gustav Conrad. The sculpture was later donated to the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin.
In 1966, it entered the art market and was purchased by the US collector Harry A. Franklin. In 1990, his daughter sold it at auction, where the Dapper Foundation acquired it for a record-breaking $3.4 million, which made it the world’s most expensively priced African artwork at the time.
The Zimbabwe Bird (Zimbabwe)
At the discovery of the Great Zimbabwe Kingdom in the 16th century by Europeans, they were in disbelief over the civilisation of the Native Africans. The indigenous Shona People constructed The Great Zimbabwe Monument between the 11th and 14th centuries. The monument had several cultural artefacts, including soapstone bird carvings known as the Zimbabwe Bird.
Cecil John Rhodes, a colonialist, took some of the stone-carved birds to South Africa. Later in 1981, four birds were returned, precisely a year after Zimbabwe gained independence. However, a part of one of the birds ended up in the hands of a German missionary, who sold it in 1907 to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. In 2003, the museum finally handed back the piece to Zimbabwe.
Benin Bronzes (Nigeria)
The Benin Empire was invaded in 1897 by the British. The entire empire was ruthlessly burnt to ashes by the British troops, who succeeded in killing thousands and wiping out one of the richest cultures of ancient Africa. The king was forced to leave his palace while treasures such as the bronze and ivory artefacts that chronicled the history and customs of the kingdom were looted.
Later, in 2014, two of the famous Benin Bronzes, the Ahianwen-Oro artwork, were returned to their homeland by British citizen Dr Mark Walker, who had inherited the painting from his great-grandfather, who took part in the looting of the Benin Empire. To date, many of the known Benin Bronzes are displayed at the British Museum, even after Nigeria made several calls to return its cultural heritage.
Man-eaters of Tsavo (Kenya)
In the Tsavo region in Kenya, East Africa, two lions killed and ate railway workers on the British Kenya-Uganda at the end of the 19th Century. While building the railway line between Mombasa and Lake Victoria over nine months in 1898, the lions attacked them.
These two killer beasts were eventually shot dead by British engineer Lieutenant Colonel John Patterson, who was at the helm of the railway project. The stuffed lions were later purchased from Patterson in 1925 by the Field Museum of Natural History in the US city of Chicago and catalogued into the museum’s permanent collections. The Kenyan National Museum has called for the lions to be returned to them.
Nefertiti Bust and Rosetta Stone (Egypt)
In 1913, the Germans took the 3,400-year-old bust of the great queen using fraudulent documents. Later, in 1935, the country reportedly considered returning the statue in 1935, but Hitler stopped the decision. The Nefertiti Bust attracts more than a million visitors yearly to the Neues Museum in Berlin, which explains why the European country is reluctant to release the artwork.
Also, the Rosetta Stone, which is a 2,200-year-old slab of black basalt with a hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek inscription that was the linguistic key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, was shipped out of the North African country in 1799 during French colonial rule and is currently in possession of the British Museum.
All Africa’s stolen artefacts must be returned to their rightful owners as they are integral elements of African culture. The systemic mechanism for retrieval should also be set in motion for the prompt return of the artefacts. The stolen artefacts are our heritage, and posterity will not forgive us if we refuse to claim what is rightfully ours.
