The Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, has called on the German government to honour its agreement with the Palace of Benin to return looted artworks, as the royal palace formally received 18 Benin artefacts that had been held in Switzerland for 125 years.

The artworks form part of a larger body of objects looted from the Benin Palace during the 1897 British punitive expedition. The monarch urged Germany to honour the 2022 agreement it voluntarily entered into with Nigeria to return more than 1,000 Benin artworks in its possession.

The returned objects include an ancestral head of a Benin Oba taken during the expedition. Speaking at the ceremony, Ewuare said the royal objects were not mere curiosities but records of a people’s governance, spirituality and artistry, and confirmed that the royal court had received over 150 original looted objects since he ascended the throne.

He traced the restitution process back to the reign of his grandfather, Oba Akenzua II, noting that his father received the first batch of repatriated artefacts, and charged museums in other countries to return Benin works in their possession to redress the colonial injustice against the cultural identity of the Benin people.

National Commission for Museums and Monuments Director General Olugbile Holloway, who led the delegation, said the Swiss government had been cooperative and transparent throughout the process, while the Swiss Consular-General Conny Camenzind and a Swiss museum director, Alice Hertzog, welcomed the return, and the state government pledged to sustain advocacy for the recovery of more treasures.