Adibe Emenyonu
A socio-cultural group, Benin Solidarity Movement (BSM) worldwide, has tackled the Igun-Igbesamwan-Owina descendants on their position over the custody of the expected looted artefacts from the palace of the Ovbuoramwen N’Ogbasi, the Oba of Benin Kingdom in 1887.
The Igun-Igbesanwan-Owina Descendants Cultural Movement of Europe and America in an open letter to the federal government, through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had demanded that the proposed return of the artefacts should not be taken to the palace of the Oba of Benin but to those who originally carved them.
The group’s position, which was contained in the letter titled: ‘Open Letter on the Return of Benin Court Arts Now Referred to as Benin Artefacts’, and endorsed by Erhauyi Isokponwu and Adolor Oviasu-Oreoghene, claimed that thousands of looted artefacts to be returned from Germany were looted from their ancestral shrines in their quarters at Igun, Igbesamwan and