THE GUARDIAN
Sunday, July 20, 2008

Bini group faults Nigeria's participation in Chicago exhibitions

From Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu, Benin

A SOCIO-CULTURAL group, the Benin National Congress (BNC) has criticised Nigeria's participation in the ongoing exhibition of artworks in Chicago, United States of America, which includes a number of works that were forcefully taken away from Nigeria by its colonisers.

advertisement President of the organization, Comrade Aiyamenkhue Edokpolor said the Federal Government was not doing enough to return the Benin artifacts which, he said, were stolen by British colonialists over hundred years ago. He said the stolen artifacts were worth over $100 million. Nigeria's participation in the exhibition, which would last till September, according BNC was a misappropriation of priorities and amounted to a waste of resources.

While blaming the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) of giving stringent conditions for the return of the artifacts to Nigeria, he decried the attitude of the Ministry of Tourism and the National Council of Museums and Monuments (NCMM) over the matter.

Specifically, he called on the ministry to make public the report of the panel set up to look into ways of recovering the stolen artifacts. The panel visited Benin December last year. Edokpolor described the artifacts as "prisoners of war, most of whom were looted during the British invasion of the ancient kingdom of Benin and others."

"The Chicago jamboree is to us a moment of sober reflection because those charged with the task of securing and protecting the objects have been caught in the frenzy offered by the foreign groups," he said.

"The Ministry of Tourism is using the objects' continuous incarceration as a means of traveling abroad on the guise of seeking their release and exhibition. We condemn in strong terms the yes-man attitude of National Commission for Museum and Monuments in which they refuse to employ radical measures in the reparation campaign. In our view, this is a tacit endorsement of the continuous incarceration of the objects. UNESCO has not helped matters because its prescribed conditions that are very stringent and almost insurmountable. We expect that the officials of the commission will be going to Chicago to make a peaceful protest for the release of the objects".

Some of the missing artifacts include: Oba Eweka, the 1st commemorative semi-circular brass plaque; Uhunmun Elao- commemorative Ancestral Head; Headless Mounted Warrior; Ivory Tusk; Brass Cork - Commemorative Altar Object; Mounted Warrior - Horseman from the North; Okpa Eronmwon - Brass Cockerel; Ikenga'Obo - Altar of the Hand; Obobu Bell - Janus Headed Brass Bell; Oba Akengboi - commemorative Brass Plaque; Ahiamwen'Oro - Bird of Prophesy or Bird of Disaster; Ohuan Eronmwon - A pair Brass Sheep; Oni of Ife - Miniature Brass Figurine; Commemorative Trophy Head; Brass Leopard; Brass Python Head.