Commentary – Oba Erediauwa’s soft power approach to repatriation

The transcription of the Oba’s speech used here was part of a set of documents pertaining to the Great Benin Centenary Committee preserved in the Bernie Grant archives. As a member of parliament, Grant (1944–2000) was a firm supporter and activist in Britain for the return of the Benin pieces to Nigeria. These archives also include a correspondence with several members of the royal court in particular prince Edun Akenzua. He was probably one the most influential of the »those well-meaning persons in England who are helping us«, that the Oba refers to here in his speech. In the effort to gain funding and support for this event, the Benin court established a network of communication and influence through the Benin diaspora community in Europe and North America.

The centenary celebrations that were opened by the Oba Erediauwa’s speech lasted for a week from the 17th to the 23rd of February and included dance performances, theatre, conferences on Edo culture and history, exhibitions and other events. One of the major objectives was to celebrate and promote the art and artists of Benin City but also to regain a measure of control over the historical narrative of the events of 1897. As Nevadomsky remarked, it was a way of »having a last say«:»Although the idea of commemorating one’s defeat struck outsiders as ironic, the local take emphasized a revision of anglocentric history, a reinvention of tradition, and an acknowledgment of Benin’s past greatness and future potential« (Nevadomsky 1997, 3).

From the wording of the Oba’s speech, this intention is indeed clear. Outside of these extracts, he considers at great length the case of his predecessor’s, Oba Ovonramwen’s innocence in relation to the attack on a group of British officials that had provoked the final decision to organize the punitive expedition. Indeed, one of the exhibitions was dedicated to the documentation surrounding his trial with manuscripts on loan from the National archives in Ibadan. Clearly for the Benin royal court accounts of the history of 1897 were not distanced or finalized but remained tied to the issue of justice and the trial of Oba Ovonramwen which had remained ambiguous in its outcome. History was still on trial, indeed, the British High Commissioner, Thorold Masefield also received a platform that allowed him to defend, so to speak, the British case for the expedition, his position as resumed by Nevadomsky repeating the standard narrative for the justification of the expedition and the accompanying taking of cultural objects as spoils (p. 4): »the kingdom was insular and needed exposure, and human sacrifice was abominable. He intimated that the brass objects removed from the palace had not been so much looted as dug up – a kind of archaeological dig.« The Oba’s speech underlines the resistance and courage of the Benin people and his predecessor, though in a sense he also embraces Masefield’s position by indicating that »Through their personal sacrifice, Benin has been placed on the world map and has become the pet subject of International academics«; in a sense adopting a cosmopolitan argument that is often used in relation to the dispersal of the Benin royal objects and their agency.

The Oba’s approach to history is also clearly framed in relation to his political and diplomatic intentions. Interestingly the question of the objects looted in 1897 does not appear as immediate or central to the historical argument but rather in a reaction to calls that were made in the run up to the centenary for legal action to be taken to recover the objects in European and in particular in British Museums. He expresses a keen sense of injustice and makes use of other references to what he sees as similar contexts of injustice that have given rise to requests for repatriation, in a kind of »multidirectional memory« (Rothberg 2009). Yet, he is particular about the means that should be put into motion to achieve any returns of objects. In particular he refers and identifies with the case of the Stone of Scone, also known as the Coronation Stone (or the Stone of Destiny) as it directly implicates an element of royal identity and genealogical heritage. It is a very old case of translocation as this 200 kg sandstone was transported from the Scottish royal court to Westminster Abbey in 1297. It had been claimed by Scottish nationalists since the 1980s and was returned to Scotland in November 1996 by John Major’s Tory government where it was »welcomed back by pipers, after seven hundred years’ absence, as a symbol of Scottish identity.« (Greenfield 1989, 135–137). In referring to other British efforts, notably to provide reparations for »Israeli Jews« he also positions the Queen of England as the active agent behind governmental efforts. In the same way he claims his role here as the main agent in efforts to claim Benin objects and calls for »quiet diplomacy«, indicating his distaste for recourse to national or international courts – the case for which continues to be made by others (Kiwara-Wilson 2013).

In 2014, a large ceremony was held to honour the second return of objects taken in 1897 to Benin since the return of some of the Oba’s coral regalia in 1937 and received by Akenzua II (Plankensteiner 2016, 140). Both returns were brought about by descendants of members of the 1897 expedition and not by a government institution. The »joyful moment« of the return of two small brass objects by Mark Walker, grandson of Captain Herbert Walker was received with great emotion and has since become an important reference for this issue in Benin City (Ediagbonya 2018, 389).

Felicity Bodenstein is a PostDoc fellow at Technische Universität Berlin. Her research focus is on the history of archaeological and ethnographic collections, and her current project for translocations is entitled »A Twentieth Century History of Absence and Presence in Benin City: Presentations and Representations of Objects Looted in 1897«.

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