Nigeria set to recover stolen artifacts

Multilateral agreements with international concerns on the way

Published on 7 July 2011

Author(s): Afrique Avenir

Type:  News Published 17 June 2011

Nigeria’s National Commission for Museum and Monument (NCMM) have disclosed that multilateral agreements with international concerns are underway to recover the country’s stolen antiquities.

The Director-General of NCMM, Malam Yusuf Usman, said on Thursday in Abuja at the National Workshop on the `Return of the Cultural Properties' that ``with our parent ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we shall fashion out agreements with neighbouring countries aimed at stopping the illegal exportation of Nigerian artifacts through our land borders’’.

"We shall encourage more profitable international tours of our objects with Nigerians as curators at all international exhibitions of these objects,'' he said.

Usman said that the commission would engage in dialogue with public institutions harbouring the cultural properties.

"It is not just stopping the artifacts from getting out, but also safeguarding the ones in the country from getting out. This can be achieved by strengthening the relationship with museums and the law enforcement agencies like the customs, police and the law courts,’’ he said.

Usman said that law enforcement agents would also be educated to differentiate between antiquities and ordinary artworks.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Alhaji Ibrahim Mahe, said that stakeholders should work out modalities for the successful recovery of the artifacts.

The restitution of the cultural properties to their rightful environments had been a burning issue of international discourse in recent times.

Nigeria said it loses an unquantifiable number of artifacts surreptitiously shipped abroad, leaving its museums bereft of important antiquities which could have given a better understanding of the country’s history and culture to not only Nigerians but also tourists.

Back to previous page