Ex-Police Boss Faults Federal Govt’s Selective Approach To Artefacts Repatriation

A retired police commissioner, Ikechukwu Ayodele Aduba, has described the federal government’s selective approach to heritage repatriation and curricular design as counter productive and fuels separatist sentiment.

The position may not be unconnected to the global publicity and diplomatic pressure for the return of Benin bronzes while Igbo-Ukwu artefacts-evidence that reframes Nigeria antiquity itself remain in British institution with no comparable national campaign for their return.

He stated this in a proposal for public lecture by Seashores Global Network (SGN), a global platform committed to advancing leadership, scholarship, cultural intelligence, and strategic dialogue across Africa and the diaspora.

The lecture triggered by a widely reported statement from the Dein of Agbor, His Royal Majesty Benjamin Ikenchuku Keagborekuzi 1, who asserted, “We are not Igbo, we are Agbor, and we speak Agbor. Do you want to give up a kingdom that had existed for 2,000 years to legal entity created 40 years ago that has no history? Which one do you prefer?” Dein of Agbor asks Agbor youths. Let us be clear: this is not a harmless gafe.

It is a symptom of a national disease,” he said.

According to his lecture titled: “Reclaiming Narrative Power: Archeology, History, and the Urgent Task of Nation Building with Sub-title: Lessons From Igbo-Ukwu And The  Danger Of Historical Amnesis”, the double standard is unhelpful to unity, feeds agitation and validates cries of marginalization.

Aduba who said the Nigerian state’s approach to repatriation exposed this bias while the selective memory tells one group their heritage is “world heritage,” and another that their’s is dispensable”.

While saying that a nation cannot beg for unity while denying the antiquity and contributions of a major constituent group, he demanded policy change, equal treatment of Nigerian heritage in repatriation, education, and national memory.

Presenting archeological and historical data that refutes claims of “history-less” people of Nigeria, he exposed how historical ignorance fuels disunity, using Delta-South East relations as example, he challenged Nigerian youth, scholars, and diaspora to take up evidence-based narrative production as a civic duty.

According to him, the doctrine justified indirect rule and decided ethnic nationalities. Today, it is revived to politically decouple Delta Igbo communities from their kin, east of the Niger. “The logic is simple and dangerous. If you have no shared past, you can have no shared future”.

The retired police commissioner warned that the federal government’s silence on such claims, while it campaigns loudly for Benin bronzes, deepens the wounds and signals selective memory as state policy.

“When traditional rulers, custodians of culture, retail historical falsehood, they fracture national identity. Young people in Delta hear that they are ancient while their cousins in Anambra are “history – less”. That is a recipe for disunity.

“It provides pseudo – intellectual cover for political marginalization. It validates the separatist argument that Nigeria is an artificial construct of peoples with nothing in common.  A nation without control of its historical narrative is a nation at risk. Archeology and disciplined history are antidotes to disintegration.

“The standard version became canon that Igbo people had no worthwhile history until Europeans arrived. Igbo-Ukwu artifacts demolish that claim with material facts. Igbo – Ukwu is not ethnic pride. It is a National fact.

“The version written by colonial officers became the “standard” and we have not fully replaced it. The result: agitation is rife. Cries of marginalization from the South East and parts of Delta are met not with evidence – based integration, but with more erasure”

“Excavated artifacts by Prof. Thurstan Shaw from 1959, Igbo-Ukwu yielded bronze regalia of staggering technical and artistic mastery. Lost-wax casting produced vessels a millimeter thick, interlaced with insects, ropes, and chains – work that rivals any 9th century metallurgy globally. This was not trade import. Crucibles, slag, and unfinished pieces found on site prove indigenous manufacturer. There is no Arab or European imprint here.

“If a people are told they have no past, they are robbed of the confidence to claim a future. That lie fuels the present disunity between Delta Igbo and South- East Igbo. It emboldens a historical statements from public figures. It justifies political marginalization. And it sustains a dangerous silence in National policy” Aduba stated.