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The Saga of the Benin Bronzes Takes a Farcical New Turn

by Mike Wells
30 October 2024 11:25 AM

Museum professionals are heading to Benin in Nigeria for the inauguration on November 4th of MOWAA, the city’s new Museum of West African Art. Built largely of rammed earth, and with no collection to put in it, the museum in Nigeria’s capital of kidnapping is the curious outcome of a well-meant project.

The Benin Dialogue Group (BDG) was founded in 2007 to address demands for repatriation of brass and ivory artefacts removed when an 1897 British expedition deposed the murderous, slave-selling regime of Oba Ovonramwen of Benin.

Nigerian officials and curators of world museums which hold collections of ‘Benin bronzes’ then discussed for years what might be done. Nigeria, after all, was gifted excellent collections at independence in 1960: but its state museums are unvisited and decrepit, and have been looted by locals. No-one knows exactly what remains of the collections so carefully assembled by British curators.

If the BDG’s member museums did lend or donate to Nigeria from their collections, where could such treasures safely go? Clearly not to the country’s existing museums. Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo state (whose centre is Benin City) had the solution: EMOWAA, an independent museum – the Edo Museum of West African Art – to house loan exhibitions from Western museums, and perhaps eventually pieces gifted by them.

The British Museum kickstarted the project with over £3 million for archaeological investigation of the site (which has come up with little of significance – basically, rubbish-tip gleanings and the foundations of mud walls). €4.5 million came from Germany. More money was provided for British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye OM OBE to design a palatial museum. Running costs, once a museum was erected, seem not to have been considered.

Then the wheels wobbled. 2023’s annual BDG meeting collapsed into farce, the EMOWAA project becoming unworkable. Today’s Benin Oba (a private citizen) has never had any interest in museums, displaying his ancestors’ bronzes to the Nigerian people or receiving pieces on loan – he just wants to own them. Nigeria’s outgoing President helped him out here, decreeing in March 2023 that all bronzes restituted by foreign museums were to be gifted to the Oba – which has been happening – and other pieces so returned have never been seen by the people either.

The BDG held no annual meeting in 2024, and Adjaye is dogged by allegations of sexual assault (which he denies); his other work has largely melted away. The German combine Siemens AG has extensive oil and gas interests in Nigeria, and the Siemens Foundation paid for the BDG-organised online catalogue of Benin treasures, Digital Benin – almost entirely those in the world’s museums, with a smattering of ones gifted by Britain in 1960, and nothing at all from the Oba’s hidden hoard.

So the outcome of these years of delegations flying to meetings and expressing “goodwill, co-operation, new paradigms” and so forth is a considerably smaller “museum” made of mud and mainly displaying current Nigerian art, which may or may not house historic artefacts one day: and an online shopping list (Digital Benin) for Nigerians who will go on demanding artworks which have been kept safe, displayed and studied in foreign museums for over a century – and where the descendants of the slaves Benin sold can visit them too.

Often it’s simply a clash of expectations. Recently, German curators visiting Nigeria asked for a meeting with the Oba to discuss their bronzes: sure, His Royal Majesty’s court replied – and the museum professionals would need to provide “plenty” of alcohol and a large cash honorarium. Not seeing how they’d be able to expense these demands, they sent their regrets.

The mud MOWAA has flashy branding and logos by London design agencies, and also big skylights, which is probably just as well: with the nation’s endless power outages, no-one in Nigeria expects the lights to stay on for long. How the new museum’s other ambitions – research and conservation, and the digital resources that it promises – will be pursued without electricity has not been explained.

It’ll be interesting to see how next week’s junketing in Benin is reported. Security for the foreign dignitaries is bound to be massive; Nigeria’s Government advises against driving to Benin due to carjacking and kidnappings, flying is preferable. And the Oba will presumably boycott the event, as he does others where he is not simply gifted more of his ancestors’ blood-soaked trophies to squirrel away.

Tags: AfricaAnti-RacismBenin bronzesDecolonisationNigeriaRepatriationWoke Gobbledegook

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