Negotiations to return Asante regalia started over 50 years ago – Agyemang-Duah

Dr. Ivor Agyemang-Duah, an advisor to the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has shared insights into the successful negotiations with the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum for the return of some Asante regalia to the Manhyia Palace in Ghana, citinewsroom.com reports.

Dr. Agyemang-Duah detailed the negotiations of the Asantehene’s visit to London in 2023 as follows:

“While in London in May 2023, having official discussions with directors of these museums, he [Asantehene] reopened negotiations and asked two of us [myself and British professor of African and Asante history, Malcolm McLeod], to help in the technical decisions that will be reached. We have been working on it for the last nine months, and that brings us where we are today.”

Highlighting concerns raised by past Asante rulers, Dr. Agyemang-Duah emphasized the historical significance of the negotiations.

“This issue of bringing back these items [artefacts] has been on the drawing board for over half a century. And it’s not just an immediate concern. It has been a concern of about three or four past Asantehenes. But this year is critical in the sense that it must be the 150 years of the war, 100 years since the return of Agyemang Prempeh from exile in Seychelles, and 25 years of the current Asantehene Osei Tutu II on the stool,” he added.

Discussing the artefacts' return, Dr. Agyemang-Duah revealed that they would be sorted to identify looted items, specifying that those from the Victoria & Albert Museum were stolen.

He also addressed the complexities surrounding the return.

“The historical antecedents of that bring itself to the question you asked, the moral rights. But there is also the other side to deal with, the laws of antiquity in the UK. These are national museums governed by very strict laws. And these laws do not permit them to give back permanently objects that were looted, stolen or whatever. And so that has also been the constraining factor in all those discussions that have on over the last 50 years,” he added.

NAY/AE