Olugbile Holloway

In 1897, British troops sacked Benin City in modern-day Nigeria, and stole about 5,000 artifacts collectively known as the Benin Bronzes. Despite decades of calls for repatriation, many of these looted objects remained in museums in Europe and the U.S. until 2021, when some governments and institutions finally began to return them. Last June, Olugbile Holloway, the director-general of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, facilitated one of the largest single repatriations of the looted Benin Bronzes to date: 119 objects from the Netherlands. In February, he oversaw the return of over 100 artifacts from the University of Cambridge to Nigeria.

According to Chika Okeke-Agulu, an expert in African diaspora art history, the historic agreement stems from Holloway’s ability to quell confusion both within Nigeria and abroad about the rightful owner of the bronzes. Holloway—whose background is in corporate advertising—says he and the Benin Oba, or monarch, adopted a 20-page agreement outlining shared commitments to the artifacts’ future. Because of that agreement, Holloway says, the Nigerian government presented a unified front in its request for the return of bronzes from the Netherlands. The director-general has now set his sights on negotiating the future of Nigerian antiquities at the British Museum, which is prohibited by law from deaccessioning its collection of bronzes.