Please, there is no crying in the casino

If you decide to gamble, don't cry when you lose

In November 1896, a band of brave Bini warriors descended on a party of 250 men and murdered all but two of them. The reason for this murder was simple: the men, among whom were James Robert Philips, the British acting consul in the area, had dared to approach Bini city when the Oba specifically asked them not to.

Philips and his entourage, which included several other white men and black slaves, only wanted to see the Oba to ask him to pay attention to the terms of a treaty he had duly signed. But this was the 1800s, and you cannot expect a sovereign Bini Oba to obey the terms agreed on a mere sheet of paper. While Plato and Aristotle and Cicero and Montesquieu had spoken and written at length about the rule of law, our dear Oba hadn’t heard of them yet. So the sovereign decided to do his worst and murder these men for ignoring his warnings. And why not? He specifically asked them not to come.

Unfortunately for the Bini, two white men survived this massacre and reported the happenings to Britain. And the very next year, 1,200 drunk white men descended on Bini city in a punitive invasion and burned the city to the ground. However, before they did, the men in the expedition reported in their journals the extent of the human sacrifice practiced by the Bini. They wrote about half-dead people being left to rot, even inside the Oba’s palace, and they say the stench of rotting bodies was everywhere.

After the invasion, the men took the Bini bronzes back to Europe, and there they lay for over a hundred years. As soon as the descendants of the now-defunct Bini kingdom could travel abroad, they started bemoaning the injustice of it all. How can the British display artifacts that they’ve stolen from us like they own them, they wondered. It’s all so unfair!

The British, on their own part, knew that power was power, and they could do whatever they wanted with the artifacts. After all, there was no risk of 1,200 Bini men landing on their shores to burn down 10 Downing Street. Perhaps if there were, they would have been more circumspect.

The bigger issue, to me, is the entire campaign of morality concerning the bronzes themselves. There is no shortage of articles and speeches from incensed activists condemning the British for having the loot in the first place.

But that position is strange! That is what usually happens after a war. In fact, the British expedition was uniquely humane for its age. The Mahdist war in Sudan, the Anglo-Zulu war, and the Herero-Nama genocide happened all around the same time, and they were extraordinarily more brutal on citizens of those states.

The only way we can seriously condemn the ownership of those bronzes by the British is to condemn war, in itself, as an unjust venture that vilifies the victor. Even if we did seriously make that argument, it’s difficult to see how it can be made on behalf of the Bini who were prolific conquerors.

Oba Ozolua, also known as Ozolua the Conqueror, fought over 200 wars. They also organized massive wars against the Ijaws and the Itsekiri who controlled the coast. In fact, almost a hundred years earlier, the Bini went on their own punitive expedition — this time to Akure. The Deji of Akure also had it coming, as he had murdered a Bini chief who had been sent as an emissary to Bini. The Deji was promptly murdered, his palace was sacked, and his son was taken as a prisoner to Bini. The entire Akure was subsequently turned into a vassal state that paid slaves, ivory, and coral to Bini. What are the odds that the bronzes — and ivory — captured by the British didn’t also come from punitive expeditions by the Bini on vassal states? At least part of the stolen ‘loot’ by the Brits must have come from Akure!

In any case, what do you think the Oba of Bini would have told Akure princes if they had requested their ivory in 1896? Would they have set up committees and experts to research the matter? Or would they have told the prince: dear prince, no crying in the casino?

God so good, the whole matter left the hands of Bini as the Brits disinherited them of their sovereignty in a brutal manner. That sovereignty was handed over to the Nigerian state, which is now led by universally despised Nigerian — and Yoruba — Tinubu. Given the peculiarities of his family line (we have no idea who his parents actually are or where they came from), Tinubu himself may have Akure ancestry. How do they say it again in Nigerianese? Two divided by four?

Anyway, the last twenty years have seen a dramatic change in the attitude of the British towards these artifacts. Swords and stones may not break British bones, but words will always hurt them. After what must have been thousands of speeches and millions of articles, they (the French, really) finally decided to return what they looted (sorry, stole!) — which is an extraordinarily rare act in history.

They now implicitly agree that these bronzes (which are mostly ivory) were stolen, and therefore ought to be returned. And so they returned them to the present Oba, a descendant of the Oba who was expelled way back in 1897. The Oba, presumably understanding the sanctity and (most especially) value of these items, fought doggedly to get the items in his possession. He even managed to extract a non-interference commitment from notorious non-busybody, Buhari. Therefore, not even one bag of cement will be bought by the Nigerian government to build a museum for the Oba. However, the Oba insists this museum will be built, just as the white men deliver the items to his house. All we can add is yet another Nigerianism: won’t God do it?

Unfortunately, the whites who dreamt of a massive academic campus when they repatriated these items are now left with their dick in their hands. They hoped that the Nigerians would take the artifacts and build them a proper home. They had even contracted an African to design the massive museum project. Donor agencies had been telephoned, and students from Oxford to Harvard were already licking their lips at the thought of academic excursions to beautiful, safe Nigeria. High level project managers were already hired, and a thousand excel sheets projecting everything from revenue to the number of tears that will be shed by the return of the bronzes were already made. And who can tell how many thousands were already paid to how many consultants?

All those plans were scrapped as the Oba got the bronzes and they now rest peacefully in his home. The people who worked for the return of the bronzes couldn’t believe it. How could these Africans, who we have supported and worked with for so long, betray us thus? That was the sentiment in David Frum’s article bemoaning this whole course of events.

But I couldn’t understand it; don’t they know that there is no crying in the casino?