Repatriation Update: The Benin Bronzes

This is part 2 of a series. Read part 1 here.

The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Adeola Austin Oyinlade of the law firm Adeola Oyinlade & Co of Lagos, Nigeria in providing background information and insight into a Nigerian perspective on issues of ownership and care of the Benin Bronzes.

Among the many news reports on repatriation of artworks to their countries of origin, the most high profile examples involve the Benin Bronzes, some 3,000 objects that were taken by British troops in February 1897 as they pillaged and destroyed the Royal Palace of Benin (the “Bronzes”). The Kingdom of Benin was thereafter incorporated into the British protectorate of Nigeria, which became the independent Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1960.

After the violent plunder, at least 3000 artifacts were dispersed globally, with the largest number ending up in the British Museum. A significant number of the Bronzes are also in Germany and the United States. A complete inventory of the location of all known Bronzes is contained in a comprehensive website.

While the circumstances vary from country to country, the Bronzes “…have become a touchstone to test European museums’ readiness to restitute heritage looted from Africa during the colonial era.” Many major museums have pledged to return the Bronzes to Nigeria. The British Museum, which holds more than 900 of the bronzes, is not one of them. It claims it is prohibited from returning the items under the British Museum Act of 1963, the same law that underlies Britain’s refusal to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. However, the door is not entirely closed on return and, meanwhile, the British Museum is a founding member and actively engaged in the Benin Dialogue Group, one project of which is to create the digital archive of the Bronzes.

Germany has taken the lead in repatriating the Bronzes. In 2019 the German government and 16 states made a commitment to work toward the return of works in public collections that were taken “in ways that are legally or morally unjustifiable today.” In 2022 ownership of more than a thousand bronzes was transferred to Nigeria and the first 22 were subsequently returned. By agreement the objects were to be handed over to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (“NCMM”), and plans included the building of a museum in Edo, Benin City for their public display. The to-be-built Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) was envisioned with the reassurance that returned objects would be cared for and displayed to the public.

However, in the spring of 2023 the immediate past president of Nigeria announced that returned objects would be transferred to the Oba of Benin, a descendant of the ruler of the kingdom of Benin when the Bronzes were looted in 1897. The announcement was formally embodied in a declaration (the “Recognition”) vesting custody and management of repatriated looted Benin artifacts in the Oba, a decision that the Nigerian public generally felt was fair and just.

This surprise announcement halted the transfer of the remaining objects, raising concerns that world heritage could disappear into the private royal collection and hence from public view and caused other museums to reassess their plans. (Amidst much tension MOWAA opened in late 2025 with an emphasis on contemporary African art.)

The major goal of the Recognition was to speed up the restitution procedure for the Bronzes by avoiding the legal and diplomatic issues that have previously hampered the repatriation of these artifacts from international institutions. Instead, however, the issue of housing the artifacts was soon mired in controversy when the government claimed that the royal palace was not able to care for them. Eventually, with the consent of the Oba, NCMM took charge of securing the objects and negotiating for their return.

Meanwhile, about 100 returned works have been displayed at the Benin City National Museum, far from the state-of-the-art facility originally envisioned. In 2026 hundreds more will be returned to Nigeria from museums in Sweden, Britain and Germany, and talks to return others are ongoing. Plans by the government and the royal family to renovate an old theater to house the objects are underway, although funding remains a concern.

The resulting controversy raises challenging issues surrounding repatriation and the role of the returning country to have a say in what happens to the objects once returned. We will continue to follow these developing issues.