Nigeria has received 18 priceless Benin Bronzes from Switzerland in another major victory in the country’s decades-long campaign to reclaim cultural treasures looted during the colonial era. The historic handover took place on Monday at the National Museum in Lagos, where Nigerian and Swiss officials celebrated the return of artifacts taken during the British invasion of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897.
The returned collection came from three Swiss institutions, the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich, Museum Rietberg Zurich, and the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève (MEG), following years of collaborative provenance research under the Benin Initiative Switzerland. Investigations concluded that the royal and religious objects had most likely been looted during the British military expedition before eventually entering museum collections in Europe.
In addition to the 18 Benin Bronzes, Switzerland also returned five cultural artifacts previously seized during criminal proceedings, including a bronze bracelet and four archaeological monoliths from Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
During the ceremony, Swiss Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider and Nigeria’s Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, signed a new bilateral agreement aimed at combating the illicit trafficking of cultural property and strengthening cooperation on future restitutions.
The return has sparked celebrations across Nigeria, with many describing it as another step toward restoring the nation’s cultural identity. Social media users praised the growing global movement to return African heritage, noting similar restitutions by Germany, Ireland, the United States, and other countries in recent years.
