![]() ![]() Several African and international media have reported that Nigeria's outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari has since transferred the bronzes to Oba Ewuare II, the current head of the former royal family of the Benin Empire.Ī presidential decree was issued on March 23 stating the artworks, and subsequently returned works, will be given to Oba Ewuare II. ![]() From left to right: Claudia Roth and Annalena Baerbock with Nigeria's Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama and Minister of Culture Lai Mohammed Image: Florian Gaertner/photothek/IMAGO Giving the bronzes back to royalty Yet recent developments have some wondering if the Nigerian public will ever be able to view the returned bronzes in a museum - and if it even matters. ![]() Most of them were stolen by British colonialists around the year 1897. The objects made of bronze, ivory and other precious materials, are among the most important works of art on the African continent. ![]() The artworks had been in Germany for 125 years, along with around 1,100 looted artifacts from the palace of the former kingdom of Benin, which is now in present-day Nigeria. "It was wrong to take them, and it was wrong to keep them," Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said while visiting Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, on December 20, 2022.īaerbock, along with Germany's Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Claudia Roth, made the visit to return the first of 20 Benin Bronzes which were once looted from the west African region. ![]()
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