National Crisis: How ignorance contribute to the looting of Nigeria's cultural artifacts.

In the 1970s, some cultural artifacts were still housed in shrines in many Nigerian villages. Those shrines were places where villagers worshiped various gods represented by the sculptures in the shrines. Example of some of the shrines are Ishundichie and Aniugala in Issele-uku dialect of Igbo Language. the early christian missionaries respected the rights of those villagers to worship their ancestor gods. Hence those shrines and their contents remained intact for some time.
In the late 1980s, a new breed of christian missionaries swoop into Nigeria. They were called "Pentecostal Christians" These are groups of misguided Nigerians who read the bible down side up, and failed to understand that the bible was a book that tells the history of a particular people (the Hebrews). not related to Nigerians , and that Nigerians deserves to have their histories represented in tangible forms too. As some of us watched in horrors, they smashed into those shrines and destroyed some of the artifacts that were kept by our ancestors to protect us from evil. Some of the artifacts were even stolen and sold to foreign art collectors by some unscrupulous members of these pentecostal churches. To them, they were bringing salvation to the villagers by destroying their "heathen gods".
I personally do not think that the bible god is superior to the gods of my ancestors for the fact that my ancestors represented their gods in tangible sculptures and other visible images. but the Christian god did not have such representations. To me, the bible god is a figment of abstraction while my ancestor made their gods real in tangible images. The unfortunate irony is that those who introduced the bible to us have flipped. They are now stealing the very artifacts they condemned as works of the devil.
With the aid of their Nigerian collaborators, they have succeeded in filling their museums and universities with stolen artifacts from various archeological sites and shrines that are being looted on daily bases. Time Pacific magazine of August 6, 2001, in an article titled Looting Africa noted that theft, Illicit sales, poverty, and war are threatening to rob the African continent of its history, traditions and qualities that its various societies have had for millennia.
The magazine reported that in early 1995, a farmer discovered a terracotta head while he was tilling his farmland in a village of Kawu, 50 kilometers from Nigerian capital, abuja. Time pacific noted that within weeks, art thieves, and international dealers flocked the village for a piece of the art rush. Dealers who specialized in smuggling cultural items across Nigerian porous borders were buying art works of the Nok people who lived in northern Nigeria at about 500 B.C.E.
Because of what transpired in Kawu, ancient Nok people who live in that village were denied the chance for their stories to be accurately told because archeologists were not on hand to properly document the circumstance surrounding the burial those artifacts. Art thieves may have robbed the Nok people a chance to have their stories properly documented, but one thing is certain: Nok figurines inspired many cultural art forms in ancient sub-Saharan Africa According to google's wikipedia on Nok people. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art history described Nok sculptures as "hollow and coil-built like potery. Finely worked to resilient consistency from local clays and gravel." Heilbrunn also observed that "Nok sculptures are so varied that it is likely they were modeled individually rather than cast from a mold." Heilbrunn also noted that "although terracotta are usually formed using additive technique, many Nok terracotta were sculpted subtractively in a manner similar to carving."
while Time pacific magazine believe that one of the major reasons why Africans sell off their artifacts is poverty, I think that ignorance is the greatest problem. Many Local people have converted to Christianity and Islam and abandoned their ancestral religions, not knowing the historical and cultural values of these artifacts, they sell them off to unscrupulous dealers at a pittance.
with these cultural items stolen and stored in museums and universities across Europe and America, it is incumbent on the government of these countries to reject and repatriate those stolen items to Nigeria.

Stolen Arts: Government Sanctioned Loots

Ever since the British government ordered its troops to invade Bini kingdom in mid western Nigeria in 1897, more Nigerian historical and cultural artifacts have been in possession of museums and private collectors through out the western hemisphere than in Nigeria.
After the British military expedition of 1897 in Benin city, Nigeria, they carted away thousands of bronze and ivory art works of the ancient Binis and immediately auctioned some to cover the cost of the expedition. Some of the museums and the estimated quantity of Bini bronze they purchased from the British are as follows:
The field Museum, Chicago: 400 art pieces.
Berlin-Ethnologisches museum: 500 pieces.
Chicago art institute 20.
Cologne Rautenstrauch-Joest museum 73.
Hamburg-museum fur volkerkunde, museum fur Kunst und gewerbe 196.
Dresden-Staatlisches museum fur volkerkunde 182.
Leipzig-museumfur volkerkunde 87.
Leiden- Rijksmuseum voor volkerkunde 98.
New york Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts 163.
Oxford -Pitt Rivers museum/ Pitt Rivers country Residence Rushmore in Farnham/ Dorset 327.
St Petersburg 40
Stuttgart 80
Vienna-museum fur volkerkunde 167
Those were the figures given by the Vanguard news paper of september 21, 2008 on its " arts and Book Review" column titled, " Nigeria: The Quest of Reclaiming Stolen Cultural Objects from Western Countries".
Western nations have been unwilling to return these cultural artifacts to Nigeria, claiming that Nigerian government has not made a formal request for their return. Formal request? as if Nigerian government requested for those items to be forcibly removed from the country. According to The Guardian news paper, Nigerian minister of tourism, culture and national orientation 2007 Bini Art exhibition held in Berlin, made a passionate appeal to Western nations to return those artifacts to Nigeria but that apart, I am aware that since 1976, Nigerian government has requested the return of the artifacts. in the year 2000, the Bini royal family wrote a letter to the British house of commons pleading for the return of those works of art but the requests were never granted. To make matters worse, the British museum continue to sell some of these artifacts for profit. They Even sold some back to Nigerian government at exorbitant prices.
Western nations should act in good faith and return those items to Nigeria. The country has suffered enough from colonial powers. Slavery and colonialism was meted on its people by the same adversaries that stole its cultural items and continue to perpetrate the same act of theft.

Two weeks ago, my girlfriend and I visited the Denver museum of arts. I was there because it was part my class project and my girlfriend was there because I was there. The building was magnificent. The surroundings were something to behold. From the view of Downtown Denver to the sculptures of two large bulls outside the museum building.
The interior of the building was a bit disappointing because many of the arts inside seemed generic. My expectations were higher than what I saw but I came alive when I saw the section for African arts. There were tribal masks from Nigeria: Yeruba, and Igbo tribal masks and sculptures. The Igbo masks and sculptures were familiar to me because I am from Igbo nation of south eastern Nigeria so I started telling my girlfriend about them. As I was talking to my girlfriend about the arts some of the visitors around paid attention to me. Almost everyone in that section of the museum noticed that all the African arts were labeled "Unknown artist". One of the visitors walked up to me and asked me why All the arts were labeled "unknown artist". I told him that most of the arts we saw were either stolen of purchased from black market operatives that they were all supposed to be found in shrines that housed the various deities that they represented not in museums.
African masks and sculptures were not designed to be in museums. There are some that were not even supposed to be seen by women or children. Some of them were supposed to be seen only at night. Europeans and Americans stormed Africa with money and encouraged people to steal these artifacts and sell it to them. These artifacts represented African cultures and even religions. As if slavery and colonialism are not enough, Europeans and Americans are looting African shrines of its priceless artifacts thereby contributing to the collapse of Africa's religions and cultures. These stolen arts should be repatriated to there various homes and restored to the various shrines were they belong.