President's priceless gift for Queen was national treasure: archives

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Times
By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent



NIGERIA’s President raided his country’s museum to bring a priceless national treasure as a present for the Queen on a state visit to London in 1973, according to documents just released.

Newly declassified archival material reveals how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office knew in 1974 that a 16th-century Benin bronze was expropriated treasure.

Removed from the National Museum in Lagos, it was a diplomatic gift from General Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian President, even though a licence for such an important treasure would never have been granted under Nigeria’s export regulations.

The revelation comes as Nigeria is reiterating calls for the British Museum to return the Benin Bronzes, which were found in 1897 when British Forces entered Benin City in southwest Nigeria.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1489051,00.html