Three Swiss museums have returned 18 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, the latest step in the country’s decades-long struggle to repatriate its looted cultural heritage. The handover ceremony took place at the National Museum in Lagos, where the National Commission for Museums and Monuments formally received the items on behalf of the Federal Government.
Fourteen of the pieces came from the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich, two from the Museum Rietberg Zurich, and two from the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève. In addition, Switzerland handed over a bronze bracelet and four archaeological monoliths from Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, seized as part of criminal proceedings in the cantons of Geneva and Ticino.
The Benin Bronzes were looted as spoils of war by the British after British forces attacked Benin City in 1897, and today are scattered in museums and private collections across the world. Monday’s ceremony marked the first step in the implementation of an agreement signed in March 2026, in which Switzerland agreed to eventually transfer ownership of 28 pieces to Nigeria.
Swiss Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider acknowledged the painful history at the ceremony: “Many of them left the Kingdom of Benin, their place of origin, as a result of violence, looting and deeply unequal power relations.” The director of the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich, Alice Hertzog, was equally direct: “They have graced our exhibition halls, they featured on our posters and in our publications. We have cared for them. We have preserved them, but they were never ours to keep.”
Nigeria’s Minister of Culture, Hannatu Musa Musawa, described the returned artefacts as evidence of a civilisation that had “mastered bronze casting to a standard of technical, artistic and extremely intricate sophistication” before colonisation, adding that Switzerland’s move should be emulated by “every single nation holding African heritage.”
The restitution follows a broader wave of returns in recent years. Last year, the Netherlands returned 119 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, the largest physical restitution to date. In February 2026, the University of Cambridge transferred legal ownership of 116 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, with the physical transfer still to be arranged. The British Museum, which retains over 900 objects from the Kingdom of Benin including 203 Benin Bronzes, has so far refused to return them, arguing its collections are legally unalienable.
Some of the artefacts returned by Switzerland will be on display at the National Museum in Lagos, while most will return to their original home in Edo State.
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