Back in Nigerian Hands

A school class was moving through the permanent exhibition of the National Museum in Lagos while, elsewhere in the building, museum staff were unpacking crates that had arrived from Switzerland. Alice Hertzog, director of the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich, was there for the preparations ahead of the ceremony at which the Federal Republic of Nigeria would formally welcome back the Benin Bronzes. What stayed with her, however, was not only the careful unpacking of the returned objects, but also the way the children encountered the artefacts already on display.

They listened intently as the curator skillfully connected the exhibits to things they already knew from their own surroundings and experience. For Hertzog, this was one of the moments that made the cultural significance of the return especially tangible. “It was great to see the Nigerian children interact with Nigerian cultural heritage,” she says. “They were relating to it in a much more direct manner than European schoolchildren would relate to this collection.”

On 29 June, 14 Benin Bronzes from the University of Zurich were formally welcomed by the Federal Republic of Nigeria at a ceremony at the National Museum in Lagos. They had travelled together with two further artefacts from Museum Rietberg Zurich and two from the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève MEG. Hertzog and her team accompanied the objects from Zurich to Lagos and then on to Benin City.

Seeing the crates opened in Lagos made the restitution tangible in a way that no formal decision could. “The museum staff came in with screwdrivers, and the objects were still in their crates with the ‘this side up’ signs,” she says. “Seeing them back in Nigerian hands felt so right.” The moment brought full circle a process that had begun several years earlier with an initiative to investigate the provenance of Benin objects in Swiss collections. And it proved that provenance research can have consequences beyond collection catalogues and museum storage rooms.

In this case, the findings provided the basis for restitution decisions by the participating Swiss institutions, while the relationships built through the research helped create trust between partners in Switzerland and Nigeria. This trust also contributed to the wider cultural cooperation reflected in the agreement on the illicit transfer of cultural property signed at the ceremony by Nigeria’s Minister of Culture, Hannatu Musa Musawa, and Swiss Federal Councilor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider.

The foundation for this agreement was laid in 2021 when eight Swiss museums formed the Benin Initiative Switzerland. Led by Museum Rietberg, Swiss and Nigerian experts jointly investigated the provenance of Benin objects in Swiss collections. The research showed that 14 of the 18 Benin objects at the Ethnographic Museum had most likely entered the international art market following the British attack and looting of Benin in 1897 and were eligible for restitution.

For Hertzog, who played a key role in the research before becoming director of the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich, the conclusion was clear. “In the end, it’s childishly simple,” she says. “When something has been wrongfully taken, it should be given back.”

After the ceremony in Lagos, four of the returned objects travelled onward to Benin City. There, they were brought to the Palace of Oba Ewuare II, the traditional ruler of the Edo people, and blessed alongside objects returned from the Netherlands and Germany. The ceremony lasted around four hours, uniting members of the royal family and local chiefs with representatives of youth organizations, the Governor’s Palace, the local museum and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments. Outside, tents had been set up for the hundreds of people who could not fit into the palace’s ceremonial rooms to attend a livestream of the ceremony.

“It was moving to see how many people were galvanized by the return of the objects,” says Hertzog. “The Oba is a very reserved person, but he got up and danced when he saw the objects laid out.” Part of the ceremony was held in the local language Edo. “I don’t understand Edo, but I noticed that one phrase was repeated several times and that the audience reacted strongly to it,” Hertzog recalls. A prince who had previously visited Zurich translated the proverb for her: “You can play with someone else’s children, but at the end of the day they have to go back to their parents.”

For Hertzog, the sentence captured a sentiment that resonated throughout the ceremony and the encounters that followed. The return of the looted Bronzes was not only a matter of museum policy or cultural diplomacy, but a moment in which people in Benin City could see, welcome and reconnect with objects that had long been absent. Another image stayed with her: the Oba seated on the throne, his youngest son sitting on the floor between his legs. Throughout the ceremony, the king reached out to him and stroked his hair. “You could feel that he wanted the next generation of traditional leadership to be there and to experience and share this moment,” says Hertzog.

The journey to Benin City also brought a reunion of many of the people involved in the provenance research and the final exhibition of the Bronzes at the Ethnographic Museum, Benin Dues. Hertzog met with academics from the University of Benin, local historians, artists, writers and bronze casters. One evening, the Onoma Creative Circle, a collective of young poets and writers from Benin City, presented poems welcoming the individual objects home.

At the National Museum in Benin City, she also saw how the work done in Zurich is already becoming part of the story told there. An information section on objects in the diaspora included photographs of the Zurich museum and of UZH curator Alexis Malefakis. “We were pleasantly surprised to see our curatorial work and research being integrated and put on show in Benin City,” she says. “A turning of the cards.”

One newer collaboration points to how such relationships might continue. Salim Umar, an architect, who as a student had worked on the exhibition at the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich, commissioned a bronze relief plate as part of his research from Phil Omodamwen, the bronze caster from Benin City who had also featured in the exhibition. The plate shows Zurich’s patron saints Felix and Regula and their companion Exuperantius – rumored by medieval legend to hail from Egypt – and combines motifs from Switzerland and Benin. The ornaments on the back show the water lily, a symbol of Olokun, the Edo deity of the sea, merging with the Edelweiss, the Swiss national flower.

For Umar, receiving the work in Benin from a highly skilled sixth-generation caster such as Phil Omodamwen was a great honor. “Being on the ground in Benin has given me a deeper insight into how the Edo people of Benin give meaning to their history and tell their stories,” he says. The new bronze plate from Benin City will now travel back to Zurich as the artistic and scholarly exchange with the Edo culture continues.

Such encounters reaffirmed Hertzog’s long-held view that museums are no longer defined simply by the collections they hold. They must ask where objects can best create new knowledge, access and meaning. The return of UZH’s Benin Bronzes showed that provenance research can have effects far beyond the museum: it informed institutional decisions, shaped public debate and helped build the trust on which future cooperation can grow.

For Hertzog, the experience is also a source of energy to tackle the difficult questions that remain in ethnographic collections. Her inbox is already filling with inquiries about objects in the Ethnographic Museum’s collection from Cameroon, Australia and Afghanistan. The restitution of the Benin artefacts shows how relationships can emerge from a process that is conducted carefully, transparently and in close exchange with the communities and institutions concerned. “This is not the end of the story,” says Hertzog. “It’s the start of new relationships built on respect.”