PATRICK ABANG, Calabar –
A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), The State of The African Diaspora (SOAD), has pledged to do everything within its reach to ensure that artifacts illegally taken away from Africa museums to Canada, Europe and America are repatriated back to the continent.
SOAD Ambassador to Nigeria, Ms. Evelyn Ogbogu, disclosed this on Wednesday during the grand reception organised by Adohose Otu Effiom Community, Bigqua Town in Calabar to honour the ambassador.
Ms. Ogbogu said SOAD has put mechanism in place to ensure that historical Africa’s artifacts found in far a way countries in Europe, America, Asia and Canada are repatriated to its countries of origin in as much as they 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 were illegally taken to other countries of the world should apply to the organization for assistance.
“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”.
“As long as kingdoms recognizes 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 with names, this makes the job easy”.
“For those who are in doubt, let me announced to you that Edo state has received some of their artifacts with about 20 percent of the money value.” She said.
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