The Restitution Paradox
A clear, unbiased summary of the process and ethics behind the Benin Bronzes restitutions, looking at the tensions amongst Western museums, the Oba of Benin and the Museum of West African Art.
AI Summary:
The article examines how the restitution of the Benin Bronzes has become entangled in local political, cultural, and institutional conflicts in Nigeria — a phenomenon the author calls “the restitution paradox.” What began as a global ethical effort to return looted artefacts has shifted from international debates about Western museums to a struggle within Nigeria over custodianship, authority, and meaning. The Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), originally conceived as a world-class facility to house returned bronzes, fell into crisis as traditional royal authority (the Oba of Benin), state politics, and international donors clashed over control. A 2023 presidential decree recognising the Oba as the legal owner upended MOWAA’s purpose, leading to protests, land revocation, and a stalled opening. The article examines how the return of cultural property can exacerbate internal divisions, raising complex questions about who should control heritage, how it should be displayed, and what restitution truly accomplishes.
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The modern struggle for the restitution of the Benin Bronzes has transitioned from a purely diplomatic and ethical debate between African nations and Western museums into a profound internal crisis of custodianship, governance, and historical narrative within Nigeria itself. At the heart of this storm is the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), an ambitious $25 million cultural project in Benin City that has become the focal point of a clash between traditional royal authority, state-led development initiatives, and federal oversight. What was originally envisioned as a “world-class” sanctuary for returned treasures has devolved into a site of violent protest, land revocation, and a high-stakes standoff involving international donors and the Royal Court of Benin.
The Historical Crucible: 1897 and the Foundation of a Century-Long Dispute
To comprehend the contemporary controversy of MOWAA, we must begin with the 1897 British Punitive Expedition, an event that remains the primary source of trauma for the Benin people.
In the late 19th century, British colonial ambition was increasingly focused on controlling West Africa’s lucrative palm oil trade, a resource required to fuel the machinery of the Industrial Revolution. The independent Kingdom of Benin, under the authority of its king, the Oba, tightly controlled this trade. When British traders and officials grew frustrated, they began calling for armed intervention.
The official justification for the invasion came in January 1897, after James Phillips, the acting consul general, led an expedition to Benin City against the advice of local chiefs and was killed along with most of his party. The British responded with a force of 1,200 Marines. Despite a fierce defence, Benin City was taken, burned, and largely destroyed, including the royal palace and the vast, ancient earthwork ramparts said to be on a scale comparable to the Great Wall of China.
More than 3,000 artefacts, ranging from iconic cast-brass plaques and commemorative heads to carved ivory tusks, were carted away and eventually sold to European and American museums to fund the military campaign.
These objects were the physical manifestation of the spiritual authority of the Oba (King) and the historical records of the Edo people, and for over a century, the Benin Bronzes have served as potent symbols of colonial dispossession. While they were admired as high art in Western galleries, the Royal Court of Benin and the Nigerian state have campaigned for their return since at least the 1960s, but it was only in the late 2010s, with a global shift in museum ethics, that Western institutions opened to negotiation.
This diplomatic momentum necessitated a secure, technologically advanced facility in Nigeria to house the returned objects, a requirement that provided the impetus for the project that would become MOWAA.
The Institutional Blueprint: LRT and the Emergence of EMOWAA
The project currently known as MOWAA began its life in 2020 as the Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA). It was the brainchild of the then-Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, and a prominent Nigerian-British financier, Phillip Ihenacho. To manage the project and appeal to international donors, the Legacy Restoration Trust (LRT) was established as a non-profit vehicle. The goal was to create an independent institution that adhered to “world-class” standards of conservation, research, and governance.
The design of the campus was entrusted to Sir David Adjaye, with a vision of creating a rammed-earth structure to house the most comprehensive display of Benin Bronzes in the world. This secular, professionalised approach was initially successful in securing pledges of millions of dollars from the German and French governments, as well as from foundations such as Mellon, Ford, and Getty. However, the institutional independence that appealed to foreign donors simultaneously alienated the traditional authority of the Benin Palace.
The Sovereignty Crisis: The Oba’s Opposition and the Quest for Custodianship
The primary tension of the EMOWAA project centres on the conflict between the secular state-led vision of Governor Obaseki and the custodial authority of the Oba of Benin, Ewuare II. While the governor initially sought the Oba’s cooperation, the Palace soon came to view the LRT and EMOWAA as an “artificial group” designed to bypass the traditional rights of the monarchy. The Oba argued that since the bronzes were stolen from his great-great-grandfather’s palace, they remained the private property of the Royal Court, not the state government.
The Palace proposed a rival project: the Benin Royal Museum, to be built on or near the palace grounds, which would be the “only legitimate destination” for the returned artefacts. This created political chaos, with Western museums caught between a state-led project with the necessary infrastructure and a traditional ruler with a cultural claim to the objects.
The 2023 Presidential Decree: A Legal Reversal
In March 2023, the dispute reached a dramatic turning point when President Muhammadu Buhari issued a Presidential Declaration. This decree officially recognised the Oba of Benin as the sole owner and custodian of all repatriated Benin artefacts. The order explicitly stated that custody of all returning bronzes must be handed over to the Oba as the “original owner and custodian of the culture, tradition, and heritage of the Benin Kingdom”.
This decree fundamentally undermined the raison d’être of EMOWAA as the intended repository for the bronzes. It empowered the Oba to keep the artworks in his palace compound with no legal obligation to show them to the public, a possibility that concerned those who viewed the bronzes as the shared inheritance of the Nigerian people and the global community. The decree also blindsided international partners like the German government and the University of Cambridge, who had been negotiating under the assumption of state custodianship.
The Rebranding Pivot: Evolution into MOWAA
Faced with a legal landscape that prohibited it from holding the primary collection of Benin Bronzes, the institution underwent a strategic rebranding. Dropping the “Edo” from its title, EMOWAA became MOWAA. The leadership, led by Phillip Ihenacho and Institute Director Ore Disu, began to frame the museum not as a repository for looted artefacts but as a “creative incubator” for contemporary art and a world-class centre for conservation and archaeological research.
MOWAA issued statements clarifying that it “neither holds nor has ever claimed ownership” of the Benin Bronzes. Instead, the museum shifted its focus to a broader mandate: representing the diverse artistic traditions of West Africa and empowering modern artists and scholars. This shift aimed to insulate the project from the royal dispute by focusing on modern and contemporary works, such as the Nigeria Imaginary: Homecoming exhibition (link), a remix of the 2024 Venice Biennale pavilion.
The 2025 Opening and the Violent Escalation
Despite MOWAA's clarifications, the controversy reached a violent climax last month (November 2025). On November 9, the MOWAA site was stormed by protesters loyal to the Oba during a private preview for international guests, including museum directors, diplomats, and cultural leaders like Nicholas Cullinan of the British Museum (reportedly menaced by a man with a drill). The demonstrators chanted royalist slogans and demanded that the museum be rebranded as the Benin Royal Museum and be managed by the Oba rather than operate as an independent, private non-profit.
The scale of the disruption was severe. Guests were whisked away to secure locations under police escort, and the planned official opening was postponed indefinitely. This event highlighted the warning signs that many critics claimed the international donors had ignored: that local leadership and royal approval are prerequisites for any cultural project in Benin City.
The election of a new Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo, further destabilised MOWAA’s standing. Okpebholo quickly aligned himself with the Oba, publicly stating that the museum was “fraught with greed” and lacked transparency. On November 10, the governor announced the revocation of MOWAA’s Statutory Right of Occupancy, declaring that the land would be reclaimed for its “overriding public interest” and restored to its previous use as the Benin Central Hospital.
The demolition of the 100-year-old hospital to make way for the museum had been a source of quiet resentment for many Benin residents, who saw it as the destruction of a site of healing in favour of a site for foreign tourists.
The International Diplomatic Response and the Tinubu Committee
The turmoil surrounding MOWAA has created a crisis for its international backers. Germany, which had returned 1,117 bronzes to the care of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) and invested €6.8 million in MOWAA, found itself in a diplomatic bind. While some donors expressed disappointment, the German government emphasised its continued commitment to the restitution process and to working with a committee established by Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on November 11.
President Tinubu constituted the high-level Presidential Committee to develop a comprehensive framework for the permanent resolution of disputes involving MOWAA, the Edo State Government, and the Palace of the Oba of Benin. The committee is chaired by Hannatu Musa Musawa, the Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism, and the Creative Economy, and includes representatives from the Presidency, the Oba’s Palace, the Edo State Government, and the French and German embassies.
The NCMM and the Oba’s 2025 Management Agreement
A crucial, often-overlooked development in resolving the crisis occurred in February 2025. Recognising that the Royal Court lacked the necessary infrastructure to manage thousands of high-value artefacts, the NCMM and the Oba signed a “historic management agreement. This agreement grants the NCMM permission to handle the physical retrieval, storage, and conservation of the bronzes on the Oba’s behalf.
Under this framework, 119 bronzes returned from the Netherlands are currently stored at the Oba Ovonramwen Memorial Storage Facility in Benin City, which the NCMM manages. This shared custodianship model allows for technical preservation while upholding the Oba's legal ownership rights as defined by the 2023 decree. It remains to be seen whether this model will eventually extend to a partnership between the Oba and MOWAA, or if the palace’s vision will entirely subsume MOWAA.
The Ethics of Return and the Museum as a Political Football
The MOWAA controversy illustrates the “restitution paradox”: the very act of returning cultural property can reignite pre-existing political and social fissures within the receiving nation. In Benin City, the museum project became a site of struggle between two different forms of legitimacy: the modern, democratic state and the ancient, customary monarchy.
For Governor Obaseki, the museum was an attempt to modernise Edo State and create a legacy of cultural tourism. For the Oba, it was an attempt by the state to “divert” his ancestral property and the funding attached to it. For international donors, it was a world-class experiment that perhaps underestimated the resilience of traditional authority. The project’s failure to launch on schedule is definitely a testament to the fact that international money and diplomatic pressure cannot override local consensus.
A broader ethical question concerns repatriation, often framed as a moral victory for a nation's people. However, vesting exclusive ownership in a single individual, the Oba, rather than the Nigerian state or the public, inevitably prompts a question on whether this limits access to the heritage. While the Oba has spoken of the bronzes serving as “cultural ambassadors” on loan to the world, the decree also permits him to keep them in private palace rooms, with no obligation to display them publicly.
Who is the Current Oba of Benin
The current Oba of Benin is Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Ewuare II. He ascended the throne on October 20, 2016, as the 40th Oba of the Benin Empire. Before his coronation, he was a seasoned diplomat, serving as Nigeria's ambassador to Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Besides the repatriation of cultural artefacts, one of his focuses is to combat human trafficking, notably revoking "juju" curses used to manipulate victims.
He currently has five wives, referred to by the traditional title Oloi (Queen), and his eldest son, Crown Prince Ezelekhae Ewuare, sat on the board of the MOWAA for several years. The Oba has described the 47-year-old Crown Prince during this period as a "poor child" who did not understand the implications of his involvement and stated that the Crown Prince was "dragged into a conspiracy" against his own heritage. The monarch believes his son was used to create a false impression of royal approval for MOWAA, thereby securing international funding from donors like Germany and the EU.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom
The sheer volume of Bronzes in the UK is a direct result of the 1897 Punitive Expedition. In the late 19th century, the British press demonised the Kingdom of Benin as a place of "human sacrifice" to justify the looting. However, the arrival of the Bronzes in London baffled experts, who struggled to reconcile the art's sophistication with their prejudices against the makers.
Today, the British Museum is the world's single largest holder of Benin artefacts, with a collection of over 900 Benin Bronzes purchased directly from the Foreign Office or through auctions, and has therefore been significantly involved in the discourse about restitution, although not in restitution itself. The museum is indeed legally prohibited from permanently removing items from its collection by the British Museum Act of 1963 and has instead focused on collaborative efforts, such as a £3-million partnership in MOWAA's archaeological work.
In contrast, UK institutions not bound by the 1963 Act have increasingly chosen to repatriate items obtained through colonial violence. These efforts have been led by university and regional museums:
• Horniman Museum: In November 2022, the Horniman became the first government-funded UK institution to transfer legal ownership of its collection of 72 Benin objects to Nigeria. Of these, only six objects were physically returned to Nigeria. The remaining 66 stay in London on a renewable loan from the Nigerian owners, with 24 currently on display in the Horniman's galleries.
• Glasgow Life Museums: Officially began the process to return 19 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria in April 2022. The artefacts remain in Glasgow's museum collections, pending the establishment of a permanent display and storage facility in Nigeria.
• University of Aberdeen & Jesus College, Cambridge: In 2021, these universities returned an Oba head and the Okukor cockerel statue, respectively, citing the "immoral" circumstances of the artefacts' acquisition as the basis for their decision.
• University of Cambridge: The university is in the process to return 116 artefacts since 2023.
Arguments for Pausing and Continuing Returns
The return by the University of Cambridge was paused in 2023 following the Nigerian presidential decree that named the Oba of Benin, rather than the state, as the sole owner. This legally allows the Oba to keep the Bronzes in his private palace with no obligation to show them. Other restitutions have also been stalled amid tensions over ownership, and the argument that it might be "best" to keep the Bronzes in Western museums for now is actively debated. The fear is that the artefacts will disappear into a private royal collection, whereas they remain publicly accessible in museums like the British Museum or the Smithsonian.
The Restitution Study Group, representing descendants of enslaved people in the U.S., argues the Bronzes should remain in the West. They contend that because the Bronzes were made from manillas (brass currency) paid to the Benin Kingdom for enslaved people, the descendants of those slaves have a moral claim to access the works, access that would be lost if the items are transferred to the private custody of the Oba.
Conversely, many stakeholders argue for the moral imperative of ownership, viewing the retention of the Bronzes as a continuation of colonial paternalism. Nigerian officials and activists argue that Europeans do not have the right to dictate how Nigeria manages its own heritage. As put by the Director of the Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg, for this party there is a "moral imperative for them to be returned to Africa with no strings attached".
Some institutions are adopting a hybrid approach to navigate this dilemma. For instance, the Smithsonian Institution and the Denver Art Museum have transferred legal ownership to the Nigerian parties but act as "loanees," keeping some bronzes in the U.S. on long-term loan. This satisfies the legal demand for restitution while ensuring the objects remain safe and accessible to the public.
Conclusion: The Road to Reconstruction
The situation highlights that the physical return of objects is not the end of the story, and, as of late 2025, MOWAA stands at a crossroads.
The project has been a textbook example of how competing narratives can obscure a shared heritage and illustrates a collision between two distinct models of post-colonial heritage management.
MOWAA was designed by its founders (and understood by international donors like Germany) as a secular, independent ecosystem for West African creativity. Its proponents view it as a vehicle for economic regeneration, job creation, and archaeological research that operates outside the perceived bureaucratic inefficiencies of the Nigerian state. From this perspective, the protests are seen as the work of "hooligans" destroying a progressive initiative that had already secured world-class infrastructure.
Conversely, the Palace and its supporters view the Benin Bronzes not as "art" for a museum, but as ancestral spiritual heritage that belongs exclusively to the Oba,. To them, MOWAA represents an attempt by political rivals (the Obaseki family) and foreign interests to "divert" funds and legitimacy away from the throne.
The future landscape will likely force a marriage between MOWAA's physical reality and the Oba's legal supremacy, perhaps in the form of a Benin Royal Museum that utilises MOWAA’s world-class facilities.
The resolution of this crisis will serve as a bellwether for the future of the global restitution movement. If Nigeria can find a sustainable way to balance traditional authority, modern governance, and international partnership, it will provide a blueprint for other nations seeking to reclaim their heritage. If not, the MOWAA controversy may serve as a cautionary tale of how the complexities of internal power dynamics can derail the pursuit of justice.
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Thanks for writing this, it clarifies a lot. I'm left wondering, if restitution sparkes such internal conflicts, does it sometimes dilute the original ethical purpose? It makes me think about what "true" restitution even means beyond the physical return. It's a complex algorithm of intent versus outcome.