Indeed, up until the mid 1970s the British Museum was still selling it’s stolen artefacts. It is estimated that the british carted away in excess of three thousand items from the Benin kingdom. This is why the FESTAC mask, the Benin bronzes and the many ivory ornaments and figurines that are on display in the museum’s lower ground ‘Africa’ section represent just a small fraction of the total African artefacts stolen and brought to Britain.

In the application for repatriation Ligali highlighted the unlawful possession of these items; not only because the war that seized them from their native territories was illegal but also because they are the property of the African people and Britain presiding over them asserts the nation maintains the same arrogant misperception of entitlement that exemplified Britain’s imperialist past. Despite its many years in captivity, the FESTAC mask has come to symbolise unity against the continued struggle of African people worldwide.

The incompatibility of the British Museum and all it connotes (“britishness”) with the cultural and spiritual value imbued within the African items was also brought to the attention of MacGregor in the request for the return of the pieces. That these items are moreover displayed as ‘things’ to be gawped at bereft of their functionality and purpose while detained by the british has been one of the key focal concerns for African people.

The calls for the return of these artefacts have been persistent since Nigeria gained independence in 1960. Most notably, the Benin royal family have petitioned for their repatriation with Prince G.I. Akenzua, the brother of the Benin monarch, arguing that the continued retention leaves African people “…impoverished, materially and psychologically, by the wanton looting of their historically and cultural property” continuing that the repatriation to their rightful owners is instrumental in teaching the history and culture of Africa to African people.

In 2003, the people of Zimbabwe received a soapstone carved bird representing the national emblem of the country after a German museum returned the symbol which had been stolen by europeans over 100 years ago.

In 2005, Ethiopia successfully fought for the return of one of its national religious treasure, the 1,700-year old Axum Obelisk. The spiritual obelisk that was looted over 70 years ago by Italy finally arrived in Addis Ababa, April 2005 to a rapturous homecoming from its rightful owners.

The British Museum has refused to participate in an open forum debate where the Pan African community in Britain can comprehensively address these issues with both the director and museum trustees in public. Perversely some of the trustees to the museum such as Emeka Anyaoku and Bonnie Greer are African. Despite Anyaoku being of Nigerian heritage he is also an official member of the british empire who was initiated as an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCBVO) by the british monarch. Greer was given her four year appointment by the british prime minister on 4 April 2005.

The Board of Trustees of the British Museum has statutory duties for the general management and control of the museum as well as for the appointment of the director. The political docility and amoral actions of the trustees have made them all complicit to the ongoing injustice. Worldwide they are seen as one of the major obstacles to the requisite action required to dismantle this particular odious and racist legacy of empire.