The Netherlands returns over 100 looted sculptures to Nigeria
The Netherlands will be returning over a hundred bronze statues from the old kingdom of Benin to Nigeria.
In a press statement on February 19th, the Dutch government announced that 113 statues that had been looted by the British government in the late 1800s and kept in the Dutch State Collection would be sent back to Nigeria.
Olugible Holloway, Director-General of the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, said, “We thank the Netherlands for their cooperation and hope this will set a good example for other nations of the world in terms of repatriation of lost or looted antiquities.”
The objects include plaques, personal ornaments, and figures currently housed in the Wereldmuseum Leiden. Thousands of these culturally significant sculptures and carvings were stolen in 1897 during the violent destruction of Benin City in modern-day Nigeria’s Edo state. When they were stolen, the British went on to sell the treasures to different nations, and they are now housed in 160 institutions worldwide.
The Netherlands is following in the footsteps of Germany, which, in 2022, returned 20 Benin bronzes in an attempt to make up for the country’s “dark colonial history”.
Six Benin Bronzes in Rotterdam, looted by Britain in the same year, will also be returned. These include a bell, three relief plaques, a coconut casing, and a staff.
The return has stimulated requests from other countries, such as Sri Lanka, India, and Indonesia, which are currently being investigated.
Nigeria hopes that this move will pressure European institutions to return stolen objects. The biggest culprit in question is the British Museum in London, which has over 900 artefacts. However, under the UK’s 1963 law, items from the museum are prohibited from being removed, making it almost impossible for any returns to take place now and in the future.
