A 600-year-old Ife Terracotta head believed to have been stolen has been repatriated back home to Nigeria by the Netherlands.
The artefact was received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, from Nigeria’s Charge D’Affairs of the Nigerian Embassy in Netherlands.
Announcing the arrival of the of the stolen treasure, Geoffrey Onyeama@GeoffreyOnyeama said that he “Received from Mr. Kabiru Musa, Chargé D’Affaires of The Nigerian Embassy in Netherlands, a unique and rare terracottahead, believed to be from Ile-Ife in Nigeria”.
The piece of art was received alongside other precious looted items.
Describing te 2-year effort to return the items, Onyeama said that:
“The artefact was intercepted by Dutch Customs at Schiphol Airport in 2018, in a package addressed to a Dutch national with forged accompanying import documents. Nigerian authorities confirmed the authenticity of the object and formally requested its return.
“The Ife terracotta head is the first formal return by the Netherlands to a State Party to the 1970 UNESCO convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property”
The Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, Geoffrey Onyeama, Prof Abba Tijani (Director-General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments) and other senior government officials received the items from the Netherland’s Ambassador to Nigeria.
Prof Tijani confirmed that the work of art was at least 600 years old.
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