Reports indicate that 23 looted artefacts have been delivered back to Nigeria by the United States of America.
A Nigerian delegation received the Benin Bronzes during a ceremony on Tuesday in Washington.
Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture of Nigeria, thanked the US and its institutions for returning the “highly-cherished” cultural artefacts.
“These artefacts are intrinsic to the culture that produced them. A people ought not be denied the works of their forebears. It is in the light of this that we are delighted with today’s repatriation,” he said.
The National Gallery of Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design each had one of the returned artefacts, which totaled 21 from the Smithsonian, according to the information ministry.
The return is a requirement of a bilateral agreement on cultural property that aims to stop particular types of Nigerian artefacts from being brought illegally into the US.
Based on ethical considerations, the Smithsonian Institution was “humbled and honored to play a modest role in transferring ownership of the art works to Nigeria,” according to Lonnie G. Bunch III, the institution’s secretary.
The pieces were among the tens of thousands of works of art that British colonialists took from the Benin Kingdom in modern-day Nigeria in 1897 and are known as the Benin Bronzes.
The items were subsequently given to other museums and organisations in Europe and the US. More of these artefacts are expected to arrive in Nigeria from the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.
The West African country says it will soon launch an international traveling exhibition with the artefacts ”in a manner that will win more friends and promote greater goodwill for Nigeria and the ethnic groups that produced [them]”.