By Tony Erha

“If it is the correct position that the museum in controversy belongs to private investors and that Edo State has no share in the investment, why will (immediate-past) government of the state demolish an existing state-owned hospital, gift the land and a huge money to the private investors for their private business?” It was a teaser by Matthew Edaghese, a lawyer and rights activist. However, it provides optical viewfinder or a lead to the stalemate that has thrown the spanner into the said progression work of the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA).

Based in Benin City, the capital of Edo, a mid-southern state of Nigeria, MOWAA, a mega-museum project, that was nutured on the the fetility of looted Benin artefacts, is again mired in protracted disputes in Benin City, its origin. The former administration of Mr. Godwin Obaseki, ex-governor of Edo State (and its backers), that only came into existence about a century after the looting of the artefacts, laid a claim to its ownership, above the palace of Oba Ewuare II, a present-day successor and great grandson of Oba Ovonranmwen, the very Benin king, from whom the artefacts were looted in 1897.

The BBC, New York Times, as well as Artnet, a European media, added-up to the local media, on the historical accounts on the invasion that led to the destruction and looting of Benin and its rich royal palace.

On January 2, 1897, James Phillips, a British official, set out to visit the Oba of Bini (Benin), but was killed as he forced his way in. The killing of Phillips and his retinue was revenged when Britain sent 1,200 soldiers to destroy the city and banished their king, Oba Ovonranmwen. Priceless artefacts were instantly looted by the British as the spoils of war, and they adorn public museums and private art collections in Britain, Europe, America and some other nations.

Of Edo and historical worldviews, there are mysterious and historical accounts of a reincarnation, of the sort, where similar events appear to be played out, by semblances of protagonist institutions and individuals. “Ahenmwen mase ese na zo”, is a Benin idiom, meaning “Obedience is better than sacrifice”. Therefrom, the attendance of the MOWAA event by its foreign visitors, despite the huge street protests by traditional chiefs, civil society organisations and the commoners, few days before, as well as the investigation committees set up by Edo State Government and the state’s House of Assembly, on MOWAA, should have forewarned them v?and organisers of MOWAA, that they will have overstepped their bounds.

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The state’s intervention was to forestall the breakdown of law and order, which they eventually came to encounter in the reckless invasion of the museum’s venue by angry protesters. Perhaps, had a headstrong James Phillips also obeyed the known protocool of the Benin Obas, like the MOWAA visitors, the accidental invasion and looting of artefacts would have been avoided.

Also to many people of Edo and other believers, it is a reincarnated Chief Agho Obaseki and his alleged betrayal of the Benin kingdom, are what resurfaced in Ex-Governor Obaseki (his great grandson) and his mismanagment of the MOWAA’s affairs, and what is also said that a great grandson of Chief Agho Obaseki had come to her come to finish the business of terminating the Benin throne and kingdom.

Artnet quoted NOWAA official source that the protest “appeared to stem from disputes between the previous and current state administrations”, whilst the US Guardian also said;

Phillip Ihenacho, the museum’s director and chairman, told Agence France Presse, adding that he believed they (wild protesters) were “representatives from the palace” of Oba Ewuare II, the nation’s non-sovereign monarch and custodian of Benin culture.

Artnet concluded that MOWAA, which kept mute to its inquiries, wrote on Instagram; “We advise against visiting the MOWAA campus until the situation has been resolved…”

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It is plausible that this accusation of Oba Ewuare II by Ihenacho, one of NOWAA’s masterminds, who bears the same “Phillips” from the colonial Britain that ignited the 1897 massacre and looting of Benin, could have been an untamed imagination, only similar to the killing of James Phillips that was unknown to Oba Ovonranmwen. Definitely, a kingdom nicknamed ‘Ilu n’ Ibinu’ suggestive of “a land of rightful anger”, where men and women are assertive and protective of their rights; hardly take orders from their superiors. And what angers them mostly is ‘manipulation and servant-master’s relationship’.

But Mr. Godwin Obaseki, is serially accused of complicit in the shoddy handling of the museum affairs, which has caused a debacle. As reported by Artnet news, the BBC, the New York Times and several local news outlets, the ex-governor, only came to be involved in the campaign for restitution and return of the looted artefacts only lately, when he became the state governor. Whereas it was initiated since 1938 by the Benin Dialogue Group and others, who sustained it.

About 2019, Obaseki had agreed to the Oba’s idea of establishing a Benin Royal Museum (BRM), to house the returned looted artefacts. The original idea was for the art pieces to be housed in a public display, and not locked away, where the public could feel their impacts. Then, the news was already rife that the looted artefacts were going to be returned in batches.

An ecstatic king, His Royal Majesty, Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin, one of the world’s oldest kingdoms, and a descendant of the deposed Oba Ovoranmwen, from whose palace the varied artwork were looted, was magnanimous pouring encomiums on Godwin Obaseki for ‘his fertile thought’. But after agreeing to the Oba on the BRM’s proposal, the Benin palace, the Guilds of Bronzecasters and public stakeholders, were shocked as Mr. Obaseki had, instead, gone ahead to float a parallel Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA), to house the same returned looted artefacts, meant for BRM, without a recourse to the Oba and stakeholders, placing non-Benins on its board.

While Mr. Iheanacho chorused the Obaseki’s defence that EMOWAA was a different museum more generic and envisages a wider global essence than a restricted Benin Royal Museum, both men and their backers submitted that while all the returned looted pieces would be housed in the proposed BRM, other contemporary art of West Africa provenance, would be housed in EMOWAA, which altogether was still (then) relevant to the famed looted Benin artefacts and the kingdom.

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But the real motives of ex-Governor Obaseki became more suspicious when the ‘Edo’ (E) in ‘EMOWAA’ acronym was yanked off to reflect ‘MOWAA’.

Also in the Tribune of July 20, 2020, the Igun Bronze Casters Guild, the authentic maker of all the looted bronze work had staged street protests over the claim by a body from outside Nigeria that a non-existence Igun-Igbesanmwan-Owina Descendants Cultural Movement, were owners of the artefacts, not the Benin palace. The Guild resonated the age-long tradition that they were set up by the Oba palace and that all the art work was owned by the palace.

Now, it has dawned on all, as alleged, that Godwin Obaseki’s motives was to corner to himself and others the homoguous donations that came with the artefacts, with a revelation that at least US $25m of donor’s fund is said to have been committed to MOWAA.

The new museum is “offensive to me,” Oba Ewuare II told the New York Times. He (Obaseki) claimed that international funds for MOWAA were given with the expectation the museum would house the Benin Bronzes, and therefore should have gone to him and his planned institution”

But Nigeria’s minister for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, had condemned the said invasion of the MOWAA’s event, while vouched that MOWAA and its artefacts were different entities from the proposed BRM and looted artefacts that are for the Oba. Could it be that the honourable minister wasn’t properly briefed by the position of the Federal Government, as once declared by ex-President Mohammadu Buhari, that all the returned looted artefacts are gazetted and belongs to the Oba, hence a credence to the BRM? But on a sudden visit to Benin, the truths may have dawned on her, with reversal comments before Senator Okpebholo, the state governor.

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To numerous commentators and observers around the globe, Senator Okpebholo is had scired the bull’s eye on his government’s resolve to unveil the circumstances of NOWAA and serve deterence. He also assured that “MOWAA has turned a birthday gift to Oba Ewuare II. He further pledge the revocation of the six hectares land and facilities of the Benin Centre Hospital, ‘a-life-first’ century old edifices that were bulldozed to give way to an entertaining centre and ‘money illusion’. After all, isn’t the “Oba abd government that own the yam and the knife”? As the Edo people would say.

But, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, from his newest foreign abode, amongst other things, asserted that he conducted the MOWAA business to his best of knowledge and for the betterment of Edo people, buttressing the same that the museum stands to guarantee thousands of jobs for Edo people and bring the state properly to global spotlight. He also absolved himself of accusations of pecuniary gains from the museum project. But, his followers, allegedly recruited to defend EMOWAA at all cost, are antagonistic in their approach to the issue.

Godwin Obaseki’s denial that MOWAA has nothing to do with the looted artefacts was, however, flawed by the BBC. In its report, titled “Nigeria Stolen Benin Bronzes In London Museum”, Emma Greg, in September 17, 2022 wrote;

“Come 2026, these treasures will have a lasting home in Benin City’s new Edo Museum of West Africa Art (EMOWAA). This centre, designed by Ghaniain-British architect, Sir David Adjaye, will house the most comprehensive display of Benin Brozes ever assembled…”

“MOWAA is uneatable food and a poisoned chalice, laid before the Benin kingdom and all lovers of the art and recreation. “Ema nai ya ne uke re ore amu y’ ekpekpe”. In Benin language it denotes, “A meal put on a height is not meant for a cripple”. When ‘E’ was removed from ‘EMOWAA’, it became suspicious, because ‘EMOWAA’ in Edo originally means “a home-made food that everyone enjoys”