Situating the Reparation Conversation of Nigeria’s Cultural Relics from Foreign Lands within Local Nuances

A Metaphor for "Charity Begins at Home"

Abstract

Over half a century after Nigeria’s political independence from Britain, there have been several campaigns for the reparation of her priceless cultural relics, looted by European expeditionists during Slave Trade and her colonialisation. These campaigns, along with demands for commensurate compensations to their original custodians, have got louder over many mediated channels of communication in the 21^st century. In a nuanced context, however, this study drew attention to the seemingly hypocritical dissipation of energy and resources on the reparation narrative of Nigeria’s stolen cultural assets by foreigners, at the expense of focusing critical attention on the huge local pilfering of the nation’s economic and cultural wealth by local actors since independence, and without recompenses. The dimensions of these indigenous lootings have left damning humanitarian consequences in their tracks. Anchored on the Afghanistanism ideology, which explains an excessive focus on foreign issues at the expense of pressing local concerns, the paper employed a qualitative interpretive framework, relying on document analysis, historical synthesis, and moral reasoning. It submitted that all manifest acts of misconduct on the part of local actors in positions of public responsibility, which led to negative outcomes on the Nigerian society, should have reparations demanded of them in the spirit of the rule of law. This is because, until Nigeria puts its house in order, through a surgical self-cleansing and purgation of internal pilfering, the international community, from whom Nigeria demands reparations for material and cultural injustices, may not take her seriously. Charity must begin at home. The Nigerian homestead must be tidied up to house the recovered relics being demanded from foreign lands.