SIR: Nigerians must have welcomed the news that Horniman Museum in London would be returning over 70 artefacts looted from the ancient Benin Kingdom at the twilight of the 19th century.
Personally, I am not too excited about the development.
First, there are concerns about our notorious maintenance culture. If and when these artefacts are given back, how decently would they be kept? Are there provisions for the oils and perfumes that should be regularly applied on them for them to maintain their beauty and durability?
What about the museums that would house them? Are they well maintained? Do the citizens appreciate such arts, or some people just want to use their political offices to tick some achievement boxes?
The National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) Lagos revealed it receives less than 50,000 visitors annually with a little above 80% of them students and just 2% foreigners. What this indicates is that, but for school excursions, a museum located at the heart of Lagos hosts less than 10,000 adult Nigerians yearly. One can only imagine how much less would be touring exhibition sites farther away from airports with much fewer populations and hotels.
With that in mind, of what economic value would these artefacts bring to the nation when the inhabitants do not visit galleries? Would it not be better it remained in the London Museum that welcomes almost a million viewers yearly?
We cannot separate tourism from aviation. The many troubles of the aviation industry where only the Lagos-Abuja route is viable will not help tourism at all. A nation where there are more private planes than commercial planes will only be known more for terrorism than tourism.
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For those Benin Bronzes and the other artefacts to attract the needed views, Nigeria needs to rework its overall infrastructure. It makes no economic justification for anybody to leave mainland Lagos to spend unpredictable hours amidst highway robbery just because he wants to visit some ancient sites in Badagry. Or due to an absence of high-speed rail, one spends over six hours from Calabar airport because he wants to visit Obudu cattle ranch. Or fear being kidnapped along between Abuja and Kaduna just because one wants to go and see Gobarau Minaret in Katsina. Until we make the cost of visiting our tourist attractions cheaper, more accessible, and safer, Benin bronzes and other related artifacts will only be in Nigeria for sentimental motives.
Truth is that Europeans ravaged Africa. However, I don’t think playing the victim card asking for the return of these items evens up things. Finally, since those Benin bronzes and other relics are of more economic value abroad in terms of people that get to see and appreciate them, and in terms of security and maintenance, I would suggest we left them there. Leaving them abroad does not mean they are not ours. People may never come to Africa, but because giraffes are in zoos outside of Africa, they get to see them. The Olympics are taken around the world, yet we all know it is Greek. In the same vein, instead of the bronzes returning to Benin where even people from Ekpoma are unlikely to see them while their value deteriorates and are at the risk of being stolen, we can bargain with the foreign authorities that are currently in possession of them that certain financial percentages be repatriated to Nigeria. That way, the millions that get to see them abroad would not only know and appreciate its origins and the people that made them, they would also pay us for it.
- Ayodele Okunfolami
Festac, Lagos.