By Charles Mgbolu
In 1874, the Asante kingdom came under attack by British troops. The UK sent an expeditionary force led by Sir Garnet Wolseley against Asantehene Kofi Karikari, the King of the Asante people.
Asante, like many other notable African communities at the time, was in the grips of a vicious British campaign that was colonising large swaths of African territories.
Kofi Karikari’s palace was invaded by British forces on October 26, 1874, leading to his abdication from the throne. He was replaced by his brother, Mensah Bonsu, according to British Museum records.
The British soldiers who attacked also looted the kingdom, stealing gold and cultural artefacts that were taken back to the UK, where they have remained ever since in museums or in the hands of private collectors.
The British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum are two prominent museums that hold a large collection of Asante and other African cultural artefacts.
Both museums announced in a joint statement on Wednesday that a total of 32 items taken from the court of the Asante king will be loaned back to Ghana in a three-year deal.
"Items of gold and silver regalia associated with the Asante royal court will be displayed at the Palace Museum in Kumasi later this year as part of a long-term loan commitment by the V&A and the British Museum," the museums said.
Breath-taking artifacts
Within the Victoria and Albert Museum, a section bearing remarkable golden artefacts is marked and displayed to museum visitors as ‘’Asante Gold’’.
One particular item that catches the eye is a striking, delicately curved goldweight in the form of an ivory warhorn made of cast brass that bounces a shiny, yet rusty golden heu, befitting of an artefact that has been around for over 150 years.
However, news of the loan has been heavily criticised, in Ghana and across Africa, with many seeing it as shockingly incredulous that artefacts violently stolen are now being loaned back by the British to the original owners.
‘’I think it is a colonialist and imperialist logic. Which is to say that they have enough power, can pillage, plunder, loot, and still have the effrontery to refuse to return that which they have stolen,’’ Abdul Karim Ibrahim, a graduate student at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra, tells TRT Afrika.
‘’It is totally unacceptable because it undermines the very principle we defend. And I think it's also a betrayal of our collective ancestors, especially those who fought vehemently to prevent this from happening in the first place,'' Ibrahim added.
Most of the treasures looted during the 1874 Anglo-Asante wars portray exquisite examples of Asante goldsmithing and carry profound cultural, historical, and spiritual significance for the Asante people.
Even though the move is seen by Jonathan Ofori, a resident of Kumasi, as a ''positive first step'', he believes it indirectly reinforces historical injustice against cultural restitution.
‘’The Ghanaian authorities and, by extension, the Mashie Palace must advance this conversation with the British authorities because these are artefacts that connect the Ashanti Kingdom to its people,’’ Ofori tells TRT Afrika.
Tough British laws
But negotiators who worked tirelessly for over a year to seal this deal say they were up against strong British laws that made it practically impossible for British museums to repatriate these artefacts on a permanent basis.
‘’The British have enacted laws around these objects, and the laws are very difficult. The laws of antiquities are very strong laws. The national museums in the UK cannot permanently return these objects,'' Ivor Agyeman-Duah, the chief negotiator from the Asante Kingdom, told Ghana's Joy News TV on Thursday.
The clamour has been gathering momentum in recent years for the repatriation of artworks and cultural objects stolen from Africa during the colonial period.
In April 2023, Finland returned sacred stones taken away by missionaries from the Ovambo people in present-day Namibia.
There has also been mounting pressure for the return of thousands of cultural treasures looted by British troops in the colonial era and then auctioned off in London and bought by some European countries and institutions.
These treasures include thousands of artefacts known as Benin Bronzes stolen from the Benin Kingdom in present-day Nigeria by the British.
Ivor Agyeman-Duah agrees with critics who say the artefacts must be returned permanently but say the task of achieving this has been tortuous.
''We have been talking about the return of these objects for close to 50 years, and we have not made any headway. We needed to change strategy along the line. We needed to look at other options,’’ Ivor Agyeman-Duah says.
Thousands of looted artefacts remain abroad, but the conversations remain strong, and soon, campaigners hope the European powers that so desperately cling to these valuable African artefacts will eventually yield to the growing calls from the African people and beyond.
➤Click here to follow our WhatsApp channel for more stories.
