President Muhammadu Buhari says African countries should
be able to determine how they will manage returned stolen assets.
He said this in an article titled ‘The West Must Return
Africa’s Stolen Assets As Well As Its Artefacts’, published by Financial Times on October 5.
He said there is a need to review the process for the return
of stolen loot, adding that Africans can be trusted to preserve their assets
and cultural heritage.
“Nigerians were delighted by the news this summer that 72 artefacts, known as the Benin Bronzes, held by the Horniman Museum in London were returning home, 125 years after being plundered by British troops. The clamour for repatriation of looted treasures is becoming irresistible,” the article reads.
“There was once a
similar clamour for the return of Africa’s stolen assets, and I see both as
part of the same struggle to bring back to Nigeria what is rightfully ours.
Siphoned from the continent by corrupt former leaders, countless billions
remain stashed in western bank accounts. Although Nigeria has arguably been the
most successful among African nations in securing the return of stolen money,
it has recovered only a fraction of what remains in the west.
“Earlier this year, Nigeria was forced to take legal action
against the UK National Crime Agency, after repeated delays to the return of
money taken out of the country in the 1990s by former dictator General Sani
Abacha. However, the court case reveals the scale of challenge before us.
Abacha is thought to have siphoned off up to $5bn to the west. This case
concerned just £150mn.
“Given levels of corruption across Africa, there will be
concern as to whether funds returned will be used appropriately. But we should
not forget that it was through western jurisdictions that the money was
laundered in the first place. Not trusting Africans to spend their own money
properly echoes the argument that we can’t be trusted to look after our own
cultural heritage.
“In the case of both
looted cultural heritage and stolen assets, western museums and authorities
largely seem to agree that the loot should, in principle, be handed back.
However, the technicalities of repatriation leave plenty of room for
maintaining the status quo.
“Museums say that treasures should be returned if it can be
proved that they were looted. Of course, they argue, it is a different matter
if artefacts were acquired through purchases and other legitimate means. But it
is the same museums that are responsible for assessing the provenance of
artefacts. They have a vested interest in keeping them, encouraging a
lackadaisical approach and murky criteria.”
Speaking on the plans to open a new museum in Edo state by
2025, the president said there is a need to ensure that all stolen artefacts
find their way back to the country.
“In 2025, a new museum will open to showcase the treasures
of the Kingdom of Benin. Designed by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye,
the Edo Museum of West African Art will sit in Benin City, the former capital
of the Edo kingdom. But without the return of more bronzes held in the west, we
may struggle to fill the museum,” he said.
“Nigeria also has an
infrastructure gap to fill — as the World Bank and other international
development institutions have highlighted. Though my administration has
undertaken the largest infrastructure programme since our country gained
independence, the hold-up in repatriating stolen assets held in the west will
make it difficult to finance new projects that help to alleviate poverty.
“In 2017, Switzerland returned $321mn to Nigeria’s Social
Investment Programme to fund the national social safety net. Monitored by the
World Bank, the money has now been disbursed through conditional cash transfers
to 1.9mn of Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens.
“Three years later, the US and the British Channel Island
dependency of Jersey returned $311mn to the Presidential Infrastructure
Development Fund, managed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority. The
first projects financed by the fund, expressways and bridges, are due to be
completed later this year.
“With stolen assets, the precise means by which institutions
return such funds — whether they deliver them to the state, a government, an ad
hoc fund or some other body — elicit endless discussion rather than action. We
know corruption persists across Africa, as it does across the world. But we
cannot afford to wait for unspecified “progress” to be achieved before this
money is released.”
Buhari’s comment comes weeks after the US government signed an agreement with the
federal government to repatriate $23 million Abacha loot to Nigeria
— but not after negotiations, which included discussions on what the funds
would be used for.
The development also comes months after the federal government announced that
at least 7,000 artefacts plundered from the Benin Kingdom would be repatriated
by Germany to Nigeria.
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