Nigeria saddened by Christie’s sale of ‘looted’ statues

Nigeria is “saddened” by the sale of two sculptures belonging to the south-eastern Igbo community, an official from the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, has said.

A prominent art historian had called on the renowned auction house, Christie’s, to cancel the sale.

Prof Chika Okeke-Agulu told the BBC the two objects were “looted” from shrines during the civil war in the late 1960s.

The items were sold for just under $240,000 (£195,000) in Paris.

Christie’s rejected the claim that the sculptures were stolen, saying the Monday sale was perfectly legal.

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The wooden objects about 1.5 metres high, one male and one female, represent deities from the Igbo community, their hands face upwards waiting to receive sacrifices and gifts.

Why is the sale so controversial?

Central to the controversy is when the statues were taken and where from.

“Christie’s ought not be dealing in Nigerian antiquities that were probably taken out at a time of conflict, contrary to the Hague Convention of 1954,” Babatunde Adebiyi, legal adviser for the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, said, adding that Nigeria “was saddened” by the sale.

The Hague Convention of 1954 was adopted to protect cultural property in the event of armed conflict. Nigeria joined the convention in 1961.

Prior to this Nigeria already had an antiquities ordinance law which made the trade of stolen cultural artefacts illegal, which was adopted in 1953.

The 1970 Unesco convention also banned the international trade in stolen artefacts.

Mr Adebiyi, who also advises the Nigerian government, says he believes these objects will always belong to the people of Nigeria.

“There is never going to be a universal principle that says something made by my forebears belongs to you in perpetuity because you bought it in an auction house. African antiquities will always be African, just like a Da Vinci will always be European.”

Where did the items come from?

Prof Okeke-Agulu from Princeton University says the objects were looted from communal shrines in his native Anambra state, with the help of local conspirators.

He said they could not have been acquired legally because they were removed during the 1960s Biafran civil war, when the Igbo community attempted to secede from Nigeria.

“Growing up in Nigeria, we would pass by these destroyed and looted shrines and they would point to them, [saying] ‘these were the shrines that were looted and destroyed during the war,'” he told the BBC.