FG Will Continue To Fight Illicit Trafficking in Cultural Property – Minister

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has
promised that the Federal Government will continue to fight against
the illicit trafficking in Cultural Property.

Declaring open an exhibition of repatriated Nigerian artefacts in
Lagos on Thursday, the Minister challenged the National Commission for
Museums and Monuments (NCMM) to double its efforts in checking the
illicit trade in cultural property.

”It is my wish that the NCMM will begin to look at means and
opportunities to re-invigorate its export and clearance permits
operations and even devise other methods of checking the illicit
trafficking in cultural property.

”I was reliably told that there was the system of taking the pictures
of all the objects leaving the country and the passport numbers of
those exporting non-antiquities out of the country. I think the NCMM
should go back into all of the systems that can be used to stop, check
and stem the illicit trafficking in cultural property of Nigeria,” he
said.

Alhaji Mohammed also urged the NCMM, the Nigeria Customs Service and
other law enforcement agencies to be more vigilant especially at the
nation’s sea ports, airports well as land borders, to check these
abuses and illicit trade.

He thanked the Ambassadors and Cultural Attaches of the United States
of America, France, Canada, Switzerland and South Africa, where the
artefacts were intercepted, and appeal to them not to relent in their
efforts in that regard.

”I must thank you the more for respecting the International Laws and
in particular the respect of the Red-List Agreement of 1997 that has
declared the export of these Nigerian cultural property illegal,” the
Minister said.

He gave the assurance that Nigeria will fully domesticate the
provisions of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting
and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural
Property, which was ratified by Nigeria on 24 Jan. 1972 and came into
force three months later.