Transparency International reports that Nigeria is 146th (out of 180) in the global corruption rankings, while Britain comes 12th. These priceless cultural artifacts are safer in the British Museum.
Nigeria’s corruption problem is orthogonal to its ability to keep its sacred cultural artifacts safe. In fact due to deep cultural and religious reasons, the chances that Nigerians would rob the Oba (King) of Benin’s palace is near zero.
I say this with the full authority of being a native of said country and culture.
> [An] investigation by the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper found that many of the artifacts that will be on display in the Humboldt Forum, a huge new museum under construction in a rebuilt Berlin palace, had for years been stored in less-than-ideal conditions. The report featured searing depictions of flooded storage rooms and depots choked with toxic dust.
Clearly European savages cannot be trusted with their own history.
"They are Savage so they need our religion. They are savages so they need to put in the fields to work. They are savages so they don't need education. They are savages so their art should be displayed in our museum not theirs."
Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the British Museum doesn't have the same viewpoint--returning these looted artifacts would deprive them of their most valuable visitor draws, so they resort to any argument that will let them avoid repatriation. That viewpoint I very definitely do not agree with, and I do not condone in the slightest.
Generally however as long as the artifacts are in hands of a museum they're generally safe no matter how unstable the host government is. The only exception is when certain religious extremists gain power and go on an spree of cultural destruction like in Syria.
It's their stuff to potentially get destroyed or go missing. If they would rather take that risk upon themselves then so be it.
I think that's an important point - they aren't being given that choice right now - if the British Museum decided to return all the Benin Bronzes then it's not inconceivable that Nigeria would leave them in the custody of the British Museum until it had a safe space to house them - or possibly loan them to the British Museum if there were doubts of the item's safety.
Perhaps something such as a country "owning" a river and deciding to freely dump nuclear waste into it which in turn causes problems for everyone.
I'm wondering what happened to the ones the director sold to his brother for "altruistic" reasons.
I'd be more concerned about those items going to private collectors, since they're probably safe for a generation and then likely to be scalped by the heirs for cash.
The moral argument aside, I don't think the 'safety' argument holds either. For example, an artifact might be 'safest' if it's enclosed in a concrete box at the center of a mountain, but that would be of no use to anyone if it can't be seen. Artifacts like these belong to the people who created them, are most relevant to those people and their descendants, and therefore it is to them that they should be most accessible. For the average person in Nigeria, these artifacts might as well not exist if they're in the British Museum or elsewhere, since they will never be able to see them.
Finally, if the British Museum truly have been good stewards of these artifacts, their rightful owners might decide to loan some of them back, but that is wholly their determination and their choice to make.
This is a hard problem (see the conflict in Israel) and there’s not any good solutions.
I’m sure as a patriotic Nigerian you feel strongly about their return, but it’s also important to realize that the patriotism is artificial in the first place.
Such is the world we live in
It is like saying that robbers can keep whatever they stole for as long as they can keep it safe.
Nigeria can choose to do whatever they want with their artifacts.
In modern terms, that would be like somebody from Britain stealing Warhol's "Eight Elvises". Then, the US government demands they be given to the Smithsonian instead of back to the rightful owner.
That's not a great reason for me to justify stealing it, though.
I suppose I accept that Nigeria is more corrupt but I think 12th is maybe outdated for Britain considering various Brexit things make me doubt the incorruptibility of basically every British political figure.
Looking quickly - Canada is 12th, US 23rd. I think Britain has to be a bit closer to US at least.
There's also quite a lot of European countries that are pretty close to Nigeria in rank, and I sort of feel that if stolen stuff ended being sent back to Russia's museums or some of the others it might be that they would be relatively safe.