A retired police commissioner, Ikechukwu Ayodele Aduba, has described the federal government’s selective approach to heritage repatriation and curricular design as counter productive and fuels separatist sentiment.
The position may not be unconnected to the global publicity and diplomatic pressure for the return of Benin bronzes while Igbo-Ukwu artefacts-evidence that reframes Nigeria antiquity itself remain in British institution with no comparable national campaign for their return.
He stated this in a proposal for public lecture by Seashores Global Network (SGN), a global platform committed to advancing leadership, scholarship, cultural intelligence, and strategic dialogue across Africa and the diaspora.
The lecture triggered by a widely reported statement from the Dein of Agbor, His Royal Majesty Benjamin Ikenchuku Keagborekuzi 1, who asserted, “We are not Igbo, we are Agbor, and we speak Agbor. Do you want to give up a kingdom that had existed for 2,000 years to legal entity created 40 years ago that has no history? Which one do you prefer?” Dein of Agbor asks Agbor youths. Let us be clear: this is not a harmless gafe.
It is a symptom of a national disease,” he said.
According to his lecture titled: “Reclaiming Narrative Power: Archeology, History, and the Urgent Task of Nation Building with Sub-title: Lessons From Igbo-Ukwu And The Danger Of Historical Amnesis”, the double standard is unhelpful to unity, feeds agitation and validates cries of marginalization.
Aduba who said the Nigerian state’s approach to repatriation exposed this bias while the selective memory tells one group their heritage is “world heritage,” and another that their’s is dispensable”.
While saying that a nation cannot beg for unity while denying the antiquity and contributions of a major constituent group, he demanded policy change, equal treatment of Nigerian heritage in repatriation, education, and national memory.
Presenting archeological and historical data that refutes claims of “history-less” people of Nigeria, he exposed how historical ignorance fuels disunity, using Delta-South East relations as example, he challenged Nigerian youth, scholars, and diaspora to take up evidence-based narrative production as a civic duty.
According to him, the doctrine justified indirect rule and decided ethnic nationalities. Today, it is revived to politically decouple Delta Igbo communities from their kin, east of the Niger. “The logic is simple and dangerous. If you have no shared past, you can have no shared future”.
The retired police commissioner warned that the federal government’s silence on such claims, while it campaigns loudly for Benin bronzes, deepens the wounds and signals selective memory as state policy.
“When traditional rulers, custodians of culture, retail historical falsehood, they fracture national identity. Young people in Delta hear that they are ancient while their cousins in Anambra are “history – less”. That is a recipe for disunity.
“It provides pseudo – intellectual cover for political marginalization. It validates the separatist argument that Nigeria is an artificial construct of peoples with nothing in common. A nation without control of its historical narrative is a nation at risk. Archeology and disciplined history are antidotes to disintegration.
