Crusoe Osagie writes that the attack on the museum in Benin City and the propriety of an individual taking sole possession of globally significant artifacts puts the future of cultural restitution in jeopardy The battle over the ownership and custody of Nigeria’s returned Benin artefacts has moved beyond an internal Nigerian dispute. It is now threatening to undermine one of the country’s most important international cultural-property arrangements — the bilateral agreement with the United States designed to protect Nigerian heritage from illicit trafficking. That is the uncomfortable reality confronting Nigeria as Washington considers the future of its cultural-property restrictions on Nigerian archaeological and ethnological material. The question is no longer simply whether the Benin Bronzes should return home. They should. The deeper question is what happens to them after they arrive — who owns them, who has custody, where are they kept, who can access them, who can study them, who can exhibit them and, most importantly, who is ultimately accountable for their safety? The events surrounding the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) in Benin City have transformed those questions from theoretical concerns into an international credibility crisis. In November 2025, protesters disrupted a preview event at MOWAA, forcing the evacuation of visitors and international guests. The confrontation was rooted in a dispute over the museum’s relationship with the Oba of Benin and the custody and display of returned Benin artefacts. The museum’s opening was subsequently postponed, while the controversy escalated into a wider political and institutional battle. For a country seeking the continued cooperation of the United States in protecting its cultural heritage, the optics could hardly be worse. A treaty built on mutual confidence The United States and Nigeria signed their bilateral cultural-property agreement on January 20, 2022. Implemented under the U.S. Cultural Property Implementation Act, the agreement allows the United States to impose import restrictions on specified categories of Nigerian archaeological and ethnological material. The restrictions cover archaeological material dating approximately from 1500 BCE to 1770 CE, as well as certain categories of ethnological material extending into the modern period. The underlying purpose is straightforward: to prevent the illicit trafficking of Nigerian cultural property into the United States and to support the preservation of Nigeria’s heritage. This is an important international instrument. It means that American customs and law-enforcement authorities can act to prevent certain Nigerian cultural objects from entering the United States without the documentation required under the agreement. But such arrangements are based on a fundamental assumption: that the country asking the international community to protect its heritage has credible systems for protecting, documenting and accounting for that heritage at home. That assumption is now under pressure. The United States is not being asked merely to recognise the historical wrong committed against the Kingdom of Benin in 1897. It is being asked to help Nigeria protect cultural property as a matter of continuing national policy. And that requires more than moral arguments about colonial plunder. It requires institutions, inventories, chain-of-custody records, professional museums, security and a clear answer to the question: who is responsible? The Benin Bronzes could disappear again The Benin Bronzes occupy a unique position in the history of restitution. British forces invaded Benin City in 1897, looted the royal palace and dispersed thousands of objects across Europe and North America. The objects subsequently became some of the most important and celebrated African works in the world’s great museums. The restitution movement has therefore been driven by a powerful moral proposition: objects taken through colonial violence should be returned to their communities of origin. That argument has gained extraordinary momentum. Germany, for example, reached an agreement with Nigeria concerning the return of Benin Bronzes, with UNESCO describing the 2022 arrangement as involving the return of 1,130 objects and broader cultural cooperation, including archaeological research, museum training and support for a new museum in Benin City. The Netherlands and other European countries have likewise returned objects. The international restitution movement is therefore producing precisely the outcome Nigeria has long demanded. But restitution creates a new obligation. Once an object is returned, the receiving country assumes responsibility for proving
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