Nigeria proposes 1 year for stolen artifacts to be returned from Germany

By Olarewaju Kola

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AA) - Nigeria proposed one year for the complete return of bronze artifacts from Germany, an official said Friday.

Government spokesman Segun Adeyemi said in a statement that Germany agreed to return dozens of antiquities stolen from the country's southern Benin Kingdom in 1897.

Information Minister Lai Mohammed, at a roundtable meeting in the capital of Abuja, requested that German officials sign the requested agreement for artifacts repatriations by December.

"Full return should be completed in a year's time, not beyond August 2022," said a statement from the Mohammed

Director General German Museum Andeas Gorgen and Stephen Steinlein, a secretary in the German president’s office, indicated their country's readiness to follow the process of the return of the works.

Nigeria plans to build a special museum in the palace of the traditional ruler of the Benin Kingdom where the more than 1,000 bronze works were stolen by the UK, Germany and other countries.

The kingdom described the artifacts as the people's heritage and history and demanded Britain and other European nations holding items take a clue from Germany.