UK's Cambridge University delays return of Benin Bronzes

Nigeria assigns control of returned artefacts to a traditional West African ruler

Treasures from West Africa were looted by British forces in the 19th century. PA

The return of more than 100 Benin Bronzes from Britain to Nigeria has been delayed after custody of the colonial loot was passed to a traditional African ruler.

The UK’s Cambridge University announced last year that brass, ivory and wooden items seized by British forces during the sacking of Benin City in 1897 would be handed back to Nigeria.

But Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has since signed a gazette handing ownership of all returned artefacts to the Oba of Benin, the royal heir to a former West African empire.

The move appeared to take western countries by surprise and raised questions about the return of the Benin Bronzes, the name for thousands of looted items in European collections.

Abba Isa Tijani, the head of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, said the return of items from Cambridge was “postponed because the gazette is not very clear on some issues”.

He said the commission “wanted to clarify … which body is responsible for the signing of the agreement” to bring the items back to Nigeria.

Germany, which handed back the first of more than 1,100 bronzes to Nigeria in December, said this week it would seek clarity from Mr Buhari’s government on what is planned for the bronzes.

But it said the legal status of the artefacts, which had been mooted as an exhibit in a new Edo Museum of West African Art, was now a “sovereign decision for Nigeria”.

“To insinuate that the bronzes will disappear and never be seen again just because Nigeria, rather than Germany, is now in control is a mindset we hoped we had left behind us,” a government spokesman said.

Bronze artefacts have previously been returned to Nigeria by London’s Horniman Museum and Jesus College, Cambridge.

The move reflects a wider rethink among western museums and universities about returning items to their countries of origin.

The British Museum, which holds hundreds of objects from the historic Kingdom of Benin, is under pressure to return treasures such as the Parthenon Marbles and the Rosetta Stone.

Museum directors have said they are open to a “Parthenon partnership” with Greece on the marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, while insisting they were acquired legally.

Egypt’s former antiquities minister Dr Zahi Hawass is leading a campaign for the return of the Rosetta Stone, which recently featured in a British Museum exhibition on hieroglyphics.