Egypt offers assistance to Nigeria in preserving smuggled Benin artifacts

CAIRO – 27 January 2022: According to the PUNCH website, the Egyptian Government has offered to assist Nigeria in the preservation of the 1,130 looted Benin bronzes being expected in the country from Germany.

The artifacts, with the least weight of 30kg each, believed to be looted by British troops in 1897, are to be repatriated from Germany to Nigeria this year.

Egypt Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Khaled el-Enani, made the offer in Cairo, Egypt when the Nigerian Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, paid him a visit.

The meeting was on the sidelines of a bilateral discussion with Africa Export-Import Bank on how Nigeria can access funding to support its growing creative industry.

Mohammed had led some private sector stakeholders involved in Digital Switch Over, to Afreximbank to assist them on how they can source funds to complete the wholly private sector financially driven project.

The Egyptian minister said they were willing to deploy their wealth of experiences in antiquity preservation management to assist Nigeria in preserving the treasure being expected from Germany.

The Egyptian Minister of Tourism & Antiquities Khaled el-Enani also offered to help Nigeria in the areas of capacity building, museum management and tourism statistics.