•To build royal  museum in Benin, more artefacts coming from UK

From Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Abuja

The Federal Government is to build a royal museum in Benin, Edo State, just as it is expecting the repatriation of 1,130 artefacts from Germany.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, disclosed this during the presentation of his ministry’s achievements, at the 26th edition of PMB Administration scorecard series (2015-2023), in Abuja, yesterday.

He said some of the 1,130 Benin bronzes have arrived Nigeria with more artefacts expected from the United Kingdom.

“During the period under review, efforts to repatriate artefacts looted from Nigeria – which we launched on November 28th 2019 – paid off handsomely, with a total of 1,130 Benin Bronzes heading home from Germany alone. The legal transfer of all the 1,130 Benin bronzes to Nigeria from all German public museums was signed on July 7, 2022. The physical return has since commenced with the first batch accompanied to Nigeria in December 2022 by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Culture of Germany and an entourage of 80 top government and museums officials. Nigeria is currently at the forefront of global efforts on repatriation of antiquities to their countries of origin,” Mohammed said.

The minister said his ministry was at an advanced stage of securing the repatriation of hundreds of antiquities from the Pitt Rivers Museum of the University of Oxford; Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford.

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Mohammed also disclosed that hundreds of antiquities would be repatriated from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Cambridge; Glasgow City Council in Scotland and National Museums of Scotland.

He said the Federal Government has started work on the expansion of the National Museum in Benin, which would house some of the expected antiquities, with the construction of a Royal Museum in Benin. 

The minister announced that the Digital Switch Over (DSO) would now be private sector-driven 

DSO is the globally-endorsed process of transition from analogue to digital broadcasting.

The minister said  after Nigeria missed the deadline for the DSO a number of times, the Buhari administration re-launched the whole digital transition process, with the pilot launch of the DSO in Jos in April 2016 and subsequent roll out in Abuja, Kwara, Kaduna, Enugu, Osun, Lagos and Kano states.

“The Federal Government resolved that for the transition to be sustainable it should be a private-sector-driven exercise. The DSO must be self-sustaining and there will be no more subsidies either on Set Top Boxes or on signal carriage,” he said.

He said the ministry will work with the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the Federal Executive Council to secure funds to pay outstanding debts.