The Igun-Igbesamwan-Owina Descendants Cultural Movement of Europe and America, has called on the Federal Government to in the interim keep looted all artefacts of Igun, Igbesamwan and Owina originality to be returned by the Europeans, pending the finalisation of an on-going accord by descendants of these aboriginal quarters of Benin kingdom on where they are to be finally kept.
Erahuyi Isokponwu (President, Europe) and Adolor Oviasu-Oreoghene, (President, America), in an open letter to Minister of Information and Culture, yesterday, said: “The history of people and ethnic nationalities is a reminder of their heritage values and reminder of their roots and that of Benin Kingdom is not an exception.
“Ever before the Portuguese explorers and Christian missionaries sojourned to Benin kingdom as it where, the Bronze Smiths of Igun, Igbesamwan and Owina herein and after referred to as the ancestral producers of all Benin Bronzes were our fathers and owners of over 75 percent of the looted Benin artefacts.
“Our forebears traded on them as their core means of livelihood from generations to generations. It is absolute falsehood to continually reel out contrived rhetoric to deny the ancestral makers of the artefacts, and we appeal to the minister, that this injustice must stop forthwith.”
VANGUARD
