Evelyn Eyo-Honesty Ogbogu of State of The African Diaspora (SOAD), a non-governmental organisation operating in Nigeria has promised to do everything within its reach to ensure that artifacts that were illegally taken away from Africa museums to Canada, Europe and America are repatriated back to the continent.
Evelyn Eyo-Honesty Ogbogu who is the resident ambassador disclosed this in Calabar during the grand reception organised by the Adohose Otu Effiom community, Bigqua Town Calabar to honour her.
Evelyn who is also deputy dean of Ambassadors (West Africa), South West and African Forum Federation (SWAFF) which has been sensitizing the communities averred that the organization has a mechanism put in place to ensure that historical artifacts found in faraway countries in Europe, America Asia and Canada but belong to Africans are returned back to its countries of origin in as much as there were illegally taken away from their original owners.
“We Will repatriate all historical artifacts taken away from South South, South East and indeed all the geo-political regions of the country back to museums in the country.
“It’s the reason that the Organization has been calling on communities particularly in Nigeria who feel that their historical artifacts illegally taken to other countries of the world should apply to the organization for assistance.
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“We are passionate and ready to give assistance to such communities.
“We did that and artifacts belonging to some communities in Edo state were returned back to the original owners in Edo state.
“We are not tired of advancing that course,” stressing that every piece of artifacts that are of historical interest to communities in the country would be retrieved as much as the communities write to the organization indicating interest to get their artifacts back.
“As long as kingdoms recognize the fact that artifacts were stolen from their kingdoms and taken to other continents, our organization will assist them to retrieve these historical remains.
According to her, the organization already have a research team working round the clock checking which artifact belongs to a particular country adding that the artifacts in question would come home with some cash as compensation to the community of origin
“Luckily every artifact that was taken from Africa is branded and named; this makes the job easy”. The resident ambassador maintained.
“For those who are in doubt, let me announce to you that Edo state has received some of their artifacts with about 20 percent of the money value.”
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