Architecture of Unforgetting

NOWAYMOWAA: HOW THE ROYAL BENIN MUSEUM WAS HIJACKED AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT WE RESUME AND COMPLETE THE BUILDING IN ITS ORIGINAL NAME AND PURPOSE AS  ROYAL BENIN MUSEUM.    ‘EMOWAA’ or its latter name ’MOWAA’ and the grants and funding and architectural design for the building in question (and currently in development) would never have come into being without the issue of the artefacts looted from Benin Kingdom in 1897 by the British forces. The dialogue to have same returned to Benin Kingdom was what started the push for a ‘world class museum’ for precisely the artefacts in question. All of which means this same building ‘MOWAA’ suddenly made a ‘privately owned’ edifice is a matter of much urgency  that needs to be investigated by the palace, the state government and the federal government of Nigeria working together.   Edo State is the heart of Benin Kingdom, which was founded by the Edo-speaking people. Edo as a state was founded out of the former Bendel Stat...

Robert Owen Lehmann is a thief by any other name. A few years back when Robert Owen Lehmann Jr was challenged about the possibly stolen status of a drawing his foundation was attempting to sell, Mr Lehmann, son of Robert Lehmann who had purchased the stolen drawing, was diligent and forthcoming in his attitude about the drawing. According to him, he “spent a good year trying to get those two parties and myself together to make some sort of equitable, fair division of the artwork,” because he has “ sympathy for the heirs whose relatives suffered at the hands of the Nazis ” The drawing in question, by the Austrian artist Egon Shiele, was actually being contested for as ‘stolen art’ by not one but two alleged owners/families, both in sudden, previously nonexistent claims prior to Mr Lehmann’s attempting to sell the drawing by auction. Mr Lehmann was nonetheless eager to acquiesce, to ensure the drawing is returned to whoever was the first owner. Meaning, of the two claimants, who was the...