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 State (conjoined name of Benin+Delta provinces). The agitation for the creation of a region unique to the history of Benin Kingdom began in 1948 with the creation of the ‘Benin Community’ under the leadership of Oba Akenzua II. The ‘Benin Community’ then pushed for the creation of a ‘Benin Delta Region’ separate from the colonial ‘Western Region’ under which they were being lumped. By 1962 post-independence, the resulting ‘Mid-West Region’ became the only independently created region in Nigeria.

Like its parent states, Mid-West Region and the latter Bendel State, Edo State resides on land that belongs to the ancient kingdom of Benin, whose founding dynasty was the Ogiso, after the end of the Odionwere Era. Edo State, as with Bendel and Mid-West Region of recent past, is imbedded in histories woven with the palace, with the history of a former nation and then empire and now still existing kingdom that has suffered much perfidy.  This is especially the case when we consider that Oba Ovoranmwen never signed —‘his hand never even touched the paper’— the so-called ‘treaty document’ brought before him by the British. That, contrary to the false claims made by the British, the Oba never ceded the land.

I will return to this down the line as it perhaps provides a way to understand certain questions around the former governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, his likely motives, strange actions and need for what one may even called ‘twisted need’ for a poorly thought, hasty so-called ‘legacy’ and perhaps even some ‘petty vengeance’. 

Back in 2010, the idea of a ‘new museum’, in Benin City, a kind of expansion of and in continuation of the already existing Benin City National Museum, was first created as a response to the arguments being given by the European institutions illegally holding on to stolen property belonging to Benin Kingdom, which was that they fear we do not have proper means (storage, museum, etc) to house the returned loot. A presumptuous argument surely, especially amid findings and reports of poor storage and willful  damage by the British museum in particular, whose chief curator (and other staff) have been exposed in elaborate decades long thefts from the museum’s stolen patrimony archives. But not to worry, a delegation was formed in 2010 to address this argument of the Europeans and that delegation was called the Benin Dialogue Group (BDG). The newly formed BDG was to be a collaboration between ‘museums in Europe and Nigerian partners, including the Royal Court of Benin and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria’. 

Things appeared to be moving along when in same year 2010 BDG, as agreed by all stakeholders that made up the group’, decided the new museum was to be called ROYAL BENIN MUSEUM, separate from the Benin City National Museum located at Ring Road, with the Oba of Benin as custodian.

The former governor Godwin Obaseki was no where in the picture. As far as we know he was not a resident of the Edo State or Benin City or indeed Nigeria but of the USA. He was also not a politician. We know for certain that in all the decades of his life as a private ‘successful’ citizen of Benin heritage, he had never shown interest in the issue of the return of stolen Benin’s heritage —an issue formerly declared as an official request by Oba Akenzua II as far back as 1933. Again, to repeat, Mr Godwin Obaseki, a well educated man, was surely aware of the history of the looted cultural and sacred palace objects of 1897. Yet, he was not known to have offered any support nor even the mildest interest or demonstration of same in supporting the cause for the return of the artefacts. 

It is therefore false to spread the misinformation, as a few have used social media to copiously claim, that this same Mr Godwin Obaseki was ‘brainchild of the museum for the artefacts’. That is a lie. 

After coming up with the idea of ROYAL BENIN MUSEUM, the main goal of BDG became to create this new museum in Benin City that will house Benin cultural heritage even as more rigorous request for the return of the looted sacred and cultural works—which is globally and collectively referred to as #BeninBronzes—was ever more being made and sorted out. The idea was that this group BDG will not only work with as many of the European and America museums currently holding these artefacts, including private hoarding of stolen works, where they may be found, of the objects stolen in the 1897 War on Benin, they will be involved in the creation of some kind of archeological sites project, with the well-known ‘Benin Moat’ and/or its revival or definitive examination surely, being stated as an area of great interest. 

Again, as mention earlier, all this time, the former governor Mr Godwin Obaseki was not in the picture nor has there been any demonstrations from him as a private citizen of Benin ethnicity, allegedly with some means and/or resources, of any interest in a matter that has been going on since 1933 when Oba Akenzua II made the first official request for a return of the looted objects of 1897.

Forward to 2016 and Godwin Obaseki was elected as governor of Edo State, to the support of many of Edo Benin descent who saw him as an underdog fighting against undue cohesion from his former ‘mentor-sponsor “godfather” the former ex-governor, Oshio-mole. The Benin Dialogue Group BDG then proceeded to approach the new governor Mr Godwin Obaseki and in 2018 began to engage the Edo State government anew under its new regime. It is on record that the governor Mr Godwin Obaseki agreed with the proposed BENIN ROYAL MUSEUM and promised to partner with the Oba of Benin who is its custodian. 

It is on record too that to achieve the set out goal of a Benin Royal Museum, BDG ie the Benin Dialogue Group, the governor Obaseki and Oba Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin, together agreed to establish a trust. This was how ‘Oba Ewuare II Foundation’ came into existence. It was NOT the later ‘Legacy Trust’ (or ‘Legacy Restoration Trust’ as it is sometimes referred) that is now being falsely claimed today by the former governor (through various social media agents pros and otherwise) that was established between the governor, BDG and the palace. 

Suddenly, by late 2019, everything changed. 

The governor was reported by Reuters as stating he is actually in conversation with the British in their idea of receiving the #BeninBronzes as ‘loaning arrangements’. 

Immediately after that Reuters publication, the governor Mr Godwin Obaseki was no longer interested in any talk of BENIN ROYAL MUSEUM and its trust, Oba Ewuare II Foundation. He was even more adamantly hostile with the Benin Dialogue Group.

Instead, Mr Godwin Obaseki began to state himself and the British Museum as the main stakeholders, that a museum to be called ‘EMOWAA’ (‘Edo Museum Of West Africa Arts) was now the agreement, which in turn will involve the loaning back of the artefacts from the various European museums for designated periods. 

This was a complete betrayal and breach of trust. Especially if you understand what entails ‘loaning’. The Architectural design that was meant for The Benin Royal Museum and which was applauded to much fanfare over its famous architect (and much publicized by same architect) was perfunctorily and without any consideration of respect if values by the governor or even professional self-regard by the architect simply diverted overnight towards this new ‘EMOWAA’. It was incredibly troubling for me to observe that the architect did not see fit to question the changes. But never mind that. What you must know is that this same EMOWAA being overnight proposed was intended to have a relationship of receiving as loans from Europe institutions, British ones in particular, if you understand, the very looted sacred works belonging to the Benin. 

What does this mean? Well, what you reading this must understand is the legal implications and trickery in the idea of ‘loaning’ back to you what was stolen from you. The idea of ‘loaning back’ what was stolen is a trickery the British Museum has been trying to trick the world into and not one group, whether of kingdoms past or present, from the Arctic to the South Seas, has accepted to be robbed a second time. The British Museum idea of ‘loaning' is expected by them to erase the actual fact that what was stolen was stolen in the first place. It is intended to render as legit the act of the loot —a loot still painful and which, for Benin Kingdom in particular, has cost much loss beyond words. 

On top that, the British idea of ‘loaning’ the objects for ‘you’ to show your own cultural and sacred heritage was intended by the British Museum (and other European Institutions shamelessly seeking to join this second theft), to be IN PLACE of any return, which they hope would then confer the ownership of what was looted to the loooter. It is indeed stunning that the same English so indifferent to what they looted, choosing from the onset to summarily and cursorily sell off thousands of #BeninBronzes across Europe to whoever has a penny, have been the most reluctant to let these sacred works of Benin Kingdom return home to Benin. 

Again, I repeat, hardly any group or people in the world today has ever accepted to be tricked this way by the British Museum. But the former  governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki was ready to do it. He was ready to have Benin Kingdom robbed a second of the very sacred works looted from the altars and sacred chambers and bedrooms of the palace.

Luckily, the very same cultural institution, the German cultural institutions, whose first aesthetic and cultural appreciation led to the first serious collection of hundreds of #BeninBronzes circa right after 1897 were interested in an honest return. The majority of looted #BeninBronzes are in institutions in Germany because a curator had began an early artistically led search in retrieving, from the hands of greedy English officers disappointed in not finding gold (and thereafter looking for a quick buck to rid themselves of what they looted) and thereby building a significant collection of the looted objects in their own home country, Germany. That the singular tireless frenzy of one well-appointed German curator can be said to have helped in salvaging much from disenchanted, unappreciative Englishmen officers is indeed correct. It also meant that Germany has a lot of looted #BeninBronzes that should be returned.  

The German museums involved declared consequently that they will begin return of a significant amount sooner (than expected). These, by the way, are the same museums that have been working with BDG.

But alas, Mr Godwin Obaseki had a different mind. Upon the announcement from Germany, Mr Godwin Obaseki established a ‘new group’ he called “Legacy Trust” (aka ‘Legacy Restoration Trust’) and working in his power as ‘governor of Edo State’ (and surely using the advantage of being ethnically a Benin man) he assured the Germans that he and his ‘Legacy Trust’ have the support of the palace. He then involved the current edaiken, the prince in waiting, to a meeting with some of these European institutions purportedly to demonstrate ‘palace involvement’. 

That meeting was an outright farce created for false representation. Further, that meeting in particular was less about returning what was looted but a process that the governor had begun to see as his ‘legacy’(?) which for some warped reason, to his mind, involved the signing off, to the British, what belonged to Benin Kingdom and the Benins. 

The British themselves at the same time made sure to publish (in unfounded links) a ‘notice’ that ‘an arrangement’ was being made between themselves and the governor the process of which the governor has been assured a grant of ‘3million pounds to start the building of a museum’ and ‘an archeological project’.

Using his newly set up ‘Legacy Trust’, Obaseki began to hijacked funds meant for the Royal Benin Museum as due his and British Museum’s ‘EMOWAA’. Germany, for example, is alleged to have provided €500,000 to begin the construction work on Royal Benin Museum and pledged to the Benin Dialogue Group an additional €4.4 million. But these were suddenly diverted to ‘EMOWAA’. The grant the British claim of a grant for a building and ‘archeological project’ (as if the Benin Dialogue Group did not already have the latter on their agenda as well!) were suddenly revealed to be after all for ‘emowaa’ and not Royal Benin Museum. The archeological project that the BDG had touched on as one of the expanded activities of Royal Benin Museum was suddenly just a British (and EMOWAA) affair. 

All these were going on alongside some certain other acts by the governor to reduce or embarrass or ‘politick’ (if you will) the place, role and history of the palace as it is today. 

Here’s what you need to understand: without the artefacts, without the idea of ROYAL BENIN MUSEUM ie a house for the artefacts looted from Benin Kingdom in 1897, EMOWAA would never have been even a concept. The grants and funds and so on, were precisely because of the artefacts: the returning and the anticipation of their return. 

Yet, Mr Godwin Obaseki it seems not only wanted the absolute erasure of all mention of Royal Benin Museum, he intend ‘EMOWAA’ as an instrument of loaning arrangements, not return. Meaning a museum he sees as his one legacy perhaps, will be used to rob Benin Kingdom of what belongs to Benin Kingdom. Meaning really, the ‘legacy trust’ he was using to achieve same was really nothing but a (restoration??) of his (??) ‘legacy’ (??) as ‘founder’ of same.

When Obaseki’s ‘Legacy Trust’ began to claim custody of repatriated Benin artefacts which, according to both the former governor and his ‘Legacy Trust’, was a claim not only ‘authorized’ by the palace but precisely because such custody was needed because the artefacts were to be housed in the said yet-to-be built ‘EMOWAA, the palace intervened.

The Oba of Benin firstly established that contrary to claims by Legacy Trust that the Oba had authorized them to represent him and take custody of artefacts being returned, the palace was not a part of nor has anything to do with ‘Legacy Trust’. Secondly, that the artefacts are Benin Cultural Heritage and as artefacts belonging to Benin Heritage, the looted works which were matter of fact looted from the Oba’s palace in Benin City in 1897 should be duly gazetted as belonging to the Benin Kingdom by Federal Legislature. The ancient Kingdom of Benin still exists, contrary to the best efforts of colonial Britain, and its head is the Oba of Benin. The Oba is in fact the custodian of Edo cultural and sacred heritage, race and lineage. This has been the case from the era of the Odionwere elders to the Ogiso dynasty to the current Eweka dynasty. 

With the help of the late former President, Major General Buhari, who had a sound respect for cultural heritage, a gazette was for all time issued. This gazette was announced and declared law. That Nigeria respects its many cultural heritages and acknowledges the particular historic, illegal events of 1897, which resulted in the looting of these sacred works and objects from the palace in Benin City, that what belongs to Benin Kingdom is to be returned to Benin Kingdom. 

Upon the issuing of the FGN’s gazette, rather than celebrate as a man of Benin or Edo ie Edo-speaking ethnicity, Mr Godwin Obaseki changed course yet again: the so-called ‘EMOWAA’ became just ‘MOWAA’ (Museum Of West African Arts). Since it was now Federal Law that the artefacts are property of Benin Kingdom and consequently aren’t going to be in their (ie EMOWAA, etc)’s ‘custody’ the yet-to-be built museum decided to be just a museum of West Africa Arts, ‘MOWAA’. Fair enough. 

Yet, the same Obaseki refused to let go. He was not satisfied with just ‘MOWAA’ but continued to act as if the now named MOWAA, like EMOWAA, was still a replacement of The Royal Benin Museum. We know this because Mr Godwin Obaseki simply refused to return to the original Royal Benin Museum (RBM) artefacts endowed funds and other processes meant for the artefacts to the very museum for the very artefacts: RBM. Without the #BeninBronzes, I.e ‘artefacts’, no museum overseas currently holding the looted works would have promised or given the grants or fund to some museum by a governor in a state in Nigeria. 

The funds Mr Godwin Obaseki continued to use for his now MOWAA project are all precisely because of the #BeninBronzes ie the artefacts of 1897, which MOWAA will most definitely NOT be housing. The #BeninBronzes are owed that money as part of a larger issue of restitution, not some MOWAA with which the very same artefacts have no relationship. The relationship of the artefacts aka #BeninBronzes is with whatever museum the custodian of the artefacts chooses —and the Oba has agreed to and designated The Royal Benin Museum.

The building of the now renamed or morphed MOWAA nonetheless continued with ‘international partners’ AS IF it was indeed the museum of artefacts being built. The other startling aspect came after Mr Godwin Obaseki left office: the building (ie its raison d’être, etc) now called ‘MOWAA’ was revealed to have been secretly changed from a public to a ‘privately owned’ edifice. How can that be? 

The museum Mr Godwin Obaseki claiming he was building hijacked not only designs and grants and archeological project, etc, intended for an original idea of a museum to house precisely the artefacts of Benin Kingdom, but as well, continued to be presented as if somehow, the artefacts were to be part of it Then, without notice, it morphed itself into a private thing that is ‘privately owned’. 

There is nothing wrong with MOWAA. It is a great idea to have a museum. We could certainly use 5, 6 even 20 museums in Benin City alone. But the museum in its name was created surely out of a certain amount of capricious intent on the part of Mr Godwin Obaseki; furthermore, its mandate is all over the place: it positions itself for high paying ‘curators’ and other high paying positions while shunning the Edo/Benin people, their knowledge and participation. It promises contemporary artmarket type works while running on the false idea that it is for the artefacts. Anyone who knows the contemporary  art market and its ways even from passing interest would easily see that this frankenstein-like ‘MOWAA’’s proposed objectives of placing contemporary art market type works alongside the #BeninBronzes (which it continues to pretend it is all about) is really about getting cultural substance and weight into these artmarket type contemporary arty works and consequently, the private enrichment of the same European class that have robbed Africa of so much.

Whatever the museum ‘MOWAA’ wants to be, it should be created and be that, surely. Whatever it is, whether as EMOWAA or MOWAA, it is not the custodian of #BeninBronzes nor does the building and all the artefacts geared donations that built the building belong to ‘MOWAA’. Its main actor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, has continually acted in bad faith, the worst being his arrogant and despicable attempt, as governor of Edo State, to use false pretences (misrepresenting the palace to ‘foreign partners’,) to sign off Benin’s heritage into a ‘loaning’ ‘agreement’ with the very looters so they continue to keep what’s Benin’s. 

The names EMOWAA and/or MOWAA were with ill intent set up by what Mr Godwin Obaseki claimed to be a partnership between himself and the British Museum. The intent was of bad faith and misrepresentation: that emowaa or its renamed MOWAA were   #BeninBronzes and ‘Benin archeological project’ in place of the very museum that the BDG and the Oba agreed will house the looted #BeninBronzes of 1897: the Royal Benin Museum. 

Why would Mr Godwin Obaseki be so eager to allow himself to be used by the British Museum for what would have been nothing but a second theft of the looted? That is the question. 

Perhaps it is a question of both parties using each other for their goals. It is a long history of betrayal that is coming to light. The ancestor of Mr Godwin Obaseki, Agho Ogbeide, was head servant and trusted friend of the prince in waiting who became known as Oba Ovoramwen. The king made Agho Ogbeide wealthy by positioning him as a go between trader in the palm oil industry. The king then gave him the title Obaseki to highlight Agho’s success in the market trade, as a gentle reminder that culture (Oba, the shining, stands as custodian of Benin Culture) was greater than mere commerce, mere market. Market was not everything. Oba Ovoramwen was a wise and gentle human being. We know that, those of us who were curious as kids and asked endless questions. The avarice of Agho Ogbeide would have struck him as limitless, and the king in titling his friend, a good he’d servant of the past before the wealth palm oil brought, hoped to give a gentle reminder of what was important  for a human to be truly human. It was not wants and market alone.

We now know that Agho Obaseki was a spy of the British forces since the time of Galway, the British officer who led the ‘treaty’ visit to Oba Ovoramwen when Oba Ovoramwen famously refused to even touch the paper brought before him, simply stating that his kingdom wants nothing but peace with the British. The so-called ‘treaty paper’ never even came with ten feet of Oba Ovoramwen. Yet, Gallway presented a paper as “signed” by “the king of Benin”; and we now know that it was Agho Obaseki, coming into contact with Gallway in that time, and having approached the Brits to better his gains perhaps, was the man used to ‘sign’ some paper that Galway then presented to his king/queen. Rather than investigate Galway, or because that was how the British operated anyway, the Britain took advantage of the appearance of things, insisting that the treaty, unverified and faked, was evidence that Benin is no longer sovereign but under the British colonial government and preparations for invasion, which ultimately led to the invasion of Benin in 1897.

It was Agho Obaseki who, in 1898, right after the burning and razing and looting of Benin City by the British forces and while still assuring the exiled king of his loyalty and trustworthiness, approached the British to make him the ‘Iyase’ and this same man Agho was indeed made ‘Iyase’ by a foreign power, the very destroyers of the king’s city, Benin City. 

The position of ‘Iyase’ is the Benin Kingdom’s most prominent appointed role equivalent to a ‘prime minister’ and is one made by the Oba, of a prominent individual. No foreigner appoints an ‘Iyase’ over Benin Kingdom (PS: the title of Agho Obaseki as an ‘Iyase’ is false and should be posthumously removed). It didn’t end there either. When Oba Ovoramwen died in exile, Agho Obaseki again approached the British to make him a puppet ‘king of Benin’. He was a clever man well aware of the British criminal activity in feting pseudo, overnight ‘kings’, right from the era of the European TransAtlantic Slave Trade to his own time: the birth of colonial oppression. The British may have promised Agho Obaseki mighty stuff as Agho Obaseki began to set about to build ‘the biggest palace ever’, right where the ancient Oba’s Market is located. Meaning, he wanted to destroy the market and place himself as king ‘bigger than the market’. His ‘coming palace’ right there over the ancient ‘Oba’s Market’ place was to be the biggest show and prove his power over Benin. 

It didn’t happen in the end: the British could not get it done for him and the edaiken, the prince in waiting, was crowned Oba Eweka II. 

But Agho Obaseki persisted, having being kept by the British as ‘Iyase’ despite never being appointed by the Oba as such, and for the rest of his life until his death in 1920, used by the British (or more likely, using them to make himself a menace) was a regular nuisance to the palace.

So there. 

The Royal Benin Museum specialized for the restoration and return of our artifacts and sacred works looted from the kingdom in 1897 is a thing. Its rightful space though hijacked must now be resumed. And, as the #BeninBronzes return, which they must, whether from looters directly or from appreciators who bought stolen works, the custodian of all the artefacts looted from the palace in 1897 is the Oba of Benin, the custodian of Benin people, their heritage, culture and lineage. The Oba for all time consequently the custodian of the Royal Benin Museum.

Moving forward, the building and all its processes belong to The Royal Benin Museum. It must be respected and developed upon and must continue. This is sacrosanct. Which, to my belief, is the Oba’s wish as the people’s.

A museum specialized for the returned artefacts looted from Benin Kingdom in 1897: the ROYAL BENIN MUSEUM. 

Oba Gha Tokpe, Isée

Signed

Architecture of Unforgetting