Oba of Benin to Prince of Wales – “Return our artifacts stolen since 1897”

The Benin monarch traced the relationship between his kingdom and the British empire and lauded the robust collaboration between the two kingdoms over time. Ewuare said, “Suffice to say that Nigerians in general and Benin people in particular will be most delighted to have your royal highness throw his royal weight behind our efforts to have some of our ancient artifacts that were taken in 1897 from the Royal Court of Benin returned to Benin to establish Oba Palace Museum for the promotion of tourism in Benin City, Edo State.”

The Oba told journalists after the meeting that the meeting discussed security and development issues in the country, including girl child education, action against human trafficking, illegal migration among others.

The Emir of Kano said the parley also discussed climate change, immigration, demographic explosion, population control, and their consequences. He said, “The population of Nigeria today, is four, five times what it was in 1960, we are moving from 45 million to about 200m; We are not looking at the level of desertification, the erosion in Niger Delta, the loss of the reserve in Chad Basin. Basically, there is population explosion and you got diminishing resources.”